Reading The Tea

Blogs range from sensational tell-alls to posting links to other people’s sites. Over the years, I’ve done pretty much the gambit but I still haven’t decided what the best approach is for me. Why read blogs? Information? A new way of seeing things? Voyeurism? Then the other side: Why keep a blog? Am I hoping to influence people? Have a large audience? Keep my friends and family up-to-date? Provide amusement? Have a place to get stuff out of my system? Keep a record? In recent years, I tend to shy away from anything too personal in blogging. But then, what’s personal? I feel like there are a few ethical guidelines: it’s up to me if I want to make my own private thoughts public, but crosses a line if I reveal too much about other people without permission. But what is too much? There’s the obvious, then the blur. Recently I’ve gone to a rather extreme point, where I minimize the “me-ness” in my entries. But then I wonder… Couldn’t some of my photos be rather personal to me? If I remove the “I” from a blog, why use the blogging medium. What is a blog writer’s responsibility to a reader? Should I ensure that an entry has a certain degree of interestingness? Quality control check the writing? Why do I blog? Why do other people blog?