Better Late Than Never...

I hate that I've been late entering the blogosphere. My reasons are good - number one being the fact that the computer I had was a used one, and constantly crashed. And the computer before that. And the computer before that. Fact is, until recently, I never had a computer that could have enabled me to blog. This one seems to work well now, and for that I am most grateful.

But the possibilities inherent in a blog are still being explored. In that sense, it is NOT too late, and so I've begun...

A couple weeks ago, I finished the book "Blog - Understanding the Information Reformation" by Hugh Hewitt. This book will inspire you to blog! The internet has truly become the Great Equalizer in terms of anyone, anywhere, getting their thoughts out there. But you do have to be quite good to even garner a single comment, much less continue blogging to anyone but your three best friends. Still, if I never got a single comment, I would continue to blog because it frees my thoughts. I have to "write it" before I know what I think about "it", whatever "it" might be.

And I am intensely grateful for the comments I receive. Every blogger lives for them! Yes, if these virtual pages are worthy of your time and brief attention, please do tell others to come visit me. I'll do my best to send them away blessed and encouraged, or at the very least, with some food for thought. Or a snack of an idea.

Choice bits from Hewitt's book:

"The blogosphere is evolving at an incredibly rapid pace, and a lot of the best mindspace is being claimed, but there remains incredible opportunity among the hundreds of millions who have yet to figure out that there is a better way to gain information than watching the tube."

"...None of us have time to understand everything, so we have to trust surrogates. People don't trust the old media with anything like the old level of confidence. "

"Change isn't coming. It is here. Information is being absorbed in new and startlingly different ways, from new, and until recently, unknown sources."

"...information is an essential element of freedom."

"From the 'big bang' of blogging, fifty thousand new virtual newspapers had been born, for that's what an "updated daily" blog is: a newspaper with one editor, and as many sources as he or she cares to link to."

"Anyone who wants a say can have it. Attention to that "say" must be earned."

"The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves, but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them."

"(a blog is)...an agent of persuasion or dissemination."

"The blogosphere has been noticed by forward thinking people of faith!"

"Writers write for the same reasons today as they did in Homer's age. Blogging is just a new means of transmitting that writing, one that bypasses completely all editors."

"If you are a leader, then you ought to be blogging, and the folks you lead ought to be reading that blog. Every day, if possible. Most days, if not."

"Morning coffee will be shared by spouses not over the paper, but over the laptop."

"Fear or enthusiasm" (about blogging) "really doesn't matter. The blogosphere is a fact as real as a brick, and even though bricks can be used to build houses or hospitals or be thrown through windows or at heads, the reality of bricks doesn't change."

"The advantage of blogging is that it will oblige you to live in the world of ideas and debates, and to do so at the modern pace."

Well, I take issue with the last quote. I don't think everyone who blogs is obliged to live in the world of ideas. I've seen too many blogs that are little more than the middle-aged equivelent of the pink diary. All about "myself, my kid, my angst, my life, and what-I-will-be-doing-next-month", and very little in terms of ideas can be found on them. While a certain amount of "me, myself, and I" detail is tolerable, and even desireable; for a blog to become a prosaic personal diary is a poor use of a powerful medium.

I'm a late arrival to blogging. I should have been doing this four years ago. I hope I can catch up.