The Trendsetter

You have been blogging for several months or perhaps even years now. And you examine your posts to see how far you’ve been able to stick with your original purpose when first starting. Do you blog according to what you have planned beforehand? Or did you find yourself straying-off topic and blogging about something else – perhaps even on an unrelated topic? Are you inline online? I find myself asking the same questions. Do I serve the purpose I stated earlier when I decided to blog?

Bloggers usually blog with many purposes. The majority of them blog for money by placing advertising in the blog. Some bloggers do so to express their creativity. Others blog because they want to rant about something they can’t say face-to-face or seek feedback and acknowledgment.

The purpose of blogging can be examined from a psychological perspective. One such way is by examining through the ‘hierarchy of needs’ as proposed by Abraham Maslow. And one of these needs is to strive for self-actualization, especially if the purpose of blogging is to express creativity through writing. Through blogging one can share experiences and knowledge about one’s favorite topics for acceptance by the online community.

In Wikipedia, self-actualization is defined as:

The intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is.

In his article Why Blog?, Abhijit Nadgouda, the guest writer at Lorelle on Wordpress, says:

There have been a lot of posts and articles about why one should blog, but believe me no one else can tell you what you can gain from it. You can only experience it, because a lot of times it leads to revelations. Let me cut it short and cite some reasons why I blog.

I have realized that writing on a topic helps me think better and deeper, which is what I am doing as I am writing this. This has ended up in many therapeutic and introspective sessions for me, where I have realized my mistakes, my strengths and my weaknesses.

Unlike in the publishing industry, blogging is not predefined. Every new blogger can invent his/her own way of blogging, which has evolved blogging into podcasting, photo-blogging or video-blogging. One can even choose to use one of the micro-blogging tools. There is only one best practice - express yourself.

There is no better way of archiving my thoughts, revisiting them after some time and learning from them. A lot of times I read my year-old posts and cannot stop laughing at myself. It has helped me realize how I have grown and evolved.

Blogging lets me have conversations. Multiple posts on a topic across multiple blogs weaves into a common thread that builds into a conversation.

Another aspect of the conversations is to connect with others, which would simply not be possible otherwise. Blogging is a discovery vehicle that introduces me to new people based on the criteria I want. And very soon you can build relationships out of these, which is what has brought me here on this wonderful blog.

Blogging, as a medium, takes my thoughts across the lands and seas and oceans, in a second! Is there another more effective medium?

Through the reasons he stated, I conclude he is striving to self-actualize. Self-actualization is not something you can show, but it is an experience that is merely spiritual.

When I examine my need to blog, I am striving to self-actualize for this is the best internal reward someone can receive from blogging. And I hope you will too, because this is one of the most satisfying of goals in blogging.