I have previous stared at my blogging navel in contemplation of the world of blogging. However something has happened today that has caused me to reflect and think some more about blogging and in particular this blog.

What is a blog for? It really is an unanswerable and probably useless quesiton. Whatever the writer intends for a blog to be is irrelevant to what it becomes. The blog simply is whatever those who read it deem it to be. If it accomplishes the goal of the blogger as well then that's a bonus. But like most things on the net how it's used is more important.

Nevertheless the blogger is doing it for a reason or reasons. People are free to read or ignore each blog as they see fit. Most bloggers are at least in part driven by a need to be read, because if no one's reading then they never will accomplish their goals. On a further level it is about influence: either through humour, thought or otherwise. Most blogs contain elements of persuasion to a point-of-view, even if it is only oblique. The successful ones are often measured in hits but I would argue even more important is what influence they have on their reader. Many might read Instapundit daily because it provides a quick overview of what's going on in the blogosphere and world, without ever being influenced by Evil Glenn's thoughts. That's what I mean by the difference between a blogger's intent and a blogger's impact.

Let me talk about the one blog I know something about: this one. There is a mixture of purposes here. I am trying to keep family and friends in touch with our lives in this foreign land. I am trying to make observations about this land I am in from my unique point-of-view (as anyone's views would be unique from their point-of-view). I am trying to use a mix of humour and thought in discussing whatever pops into my head. Sometimes I am simply just having fun and experimenting with this medium. And for whatever reason you have found this little corner of the net and are reading this now. So obviously somehow that mix is working.

But I don't post everything on this blog. I make no apologies about my self-censorship. I hide the identity of my family, though it is not hard to work out who they are. I like to think the characters are obvious enough without pinning pictures and real names on each. I disguise where I live, not because I think I will be stalked (Brittney, email me for the address), but simply because it's not relevant to the goings-on of this blog. I do not comment about my workplace. I try to avoid too much commenting on topics that overlap with my work for the same reasons. I am always mindful that this blog is in public and essentially here for all time (which in blog terms is about 5 months, but you get my drift). I do think about some of the people who read this such as family and co-workers. If I choose to say my boss is the greatest guy in the world I expect he will read that sometime. Hopefully he will then see fit to pay me a whopping great bonus so I can retire. Like a newspaper the writer needs to be mindful of his audience as well as his purpose.

The question comes as to where to draw the line between what goes on here and what stays off. There's no rules for that. I make that decision each time I post something. Usually it is not such a tough decision. The question is usually what to post because it is interesting or it fits or just because. I spend more time worrying that I'm using too many contractions in my posts and breaking too many grammar rules like using prepositions to start sentences or having long sentences that are a series of clauses joined with conjunctions in differing tenses and voices and finally ending a preposition that is unrelated to the previous phrase, but.

This post is not like that. All this has been prompted by some very unsavoury events at the Disneyland complex where I live. The man in question is a friend of several of my co-workers. I've posted the article because it is obviously relevant to my life here. But I've been deliberating whether I should and to be honest I'm still not sure I've made the right decision. Murder happens all too often but thankfully it is rarely this close. But when it does come so close to home (both literally and metaphorically) it causes a pause for thought. This time it is not happening to that mythical "them", it is happening to "us". I can't put that mental distance that's needed in order to make the news feel safe enough to comment on. Instead I'm simply waffling on in a metaphysical dissertation on the nature of blogs. It is really overly self-indulgent in the extreme.

So now we're at the end of this post and you'll soon move on to the next one or to another blog. Just like in a novel or newspaper though it is important to remember that these words are written by someone with an agenda and a motive. The process of writing always involves judgements such as these: what to include, what to exclude; what to say, how to say it; and when not to say anything at all.

Sometimes those judgements are extremely difficult to make.