On blogging

Sooner or later every blogger feels the need to philosophise on the significance of blogs, and on why he or she has a blog. I might as well do my bit of philosophising now, and get it over with.

What is a blog? Well, there are probably as many answers as there are blogs. This blog seems to me to serve several purposes:

1. A self-assessment of my life, as it is being lived. Many of us are obliged to complete an annual career self-assessment as part of our performance review. In it we are challenged to look back and consider what we did, whether we did it well or not, and what can be improved.

2. A very small element of Maoist self-criticism. In the cultural revolution many years of people's lives were wasted in continuous and destructive self-criticism (too often aided by other people, of course, and under severe pressure). I guess the modern fashion for self-assessment is a very soft version of this , though during the interview part of the normal annual performance review it sometimes doesn't seem so soft.

3. Finally, and most importantly, the discipline of keeping a blog will probably push me to live my life a little fuller. Life in Brussels is easy and comfortable, and people like me with a permanent and well-paid job can have a tendency to go with the flow. That flow can often go for weeks or months, with a regular rhythm of work, home, and fairly ordinary social pursuits. Keeping a blog about life in Brussels encourages me to look at your life through the eyes of the reader - you - and this can make me very aware of what I am not doing. So, the very act of keeping this blog may have the effect of filling the blog. I will be more inclined to go to that event, to take that picture, to notice what is happening, in order to be able to blog it.

That's it. Philosophy over. Now I'll get back to living the life!