To quote James Stockdale: Why am I here? Why have I created a blog? I can’t quite figure out why. I keep a journal, on good old-fashioned paper; do I want to turn this into my journal? No. I don’t need all my innermost thoughts to be sent out into the world (or at least to the ten people who read this). Anyway, as writing guru Natalie Goldberg says, you can only write well if you’re willing to write crap, and you can only write crap if you’re not worried about what other people will think.

Besides, one reason I have a website is so that people can find out about me, and maybe want to meet me, and divulging all my innermost troubling thoughts (we all have them, don’t even pretend you don’t) isn’t really the best way to be appealing, is it? Would you do that at a party? No. So why do it here? I don’t know. Lots of other people have weblogs, too. I guess it’s the exhibitionist Internet culture. Sort of makes you wonder why we were born with skin. I mean, I see the appeal, or else I wouldn’t have made a blog, but I don’t quite get it.