On Blogging

After 18 months of blogging on “Bassam In Syria”, I thought to myself I should say something about blogging. Sometime in the future, blog will be the word of the year. I am not sure when the culture of blogging started, but I got introduced to it in 2003. Then I decided to write a blog: “A Syrian Abroad”. I was in USA at the time and for reasons beyond what my memory can tell I decided not to make it public, so I started to write to myself, and had some 34 posts before I stop. I used to title my entries like the one of this entry: “On ......” Just personal thoughts of certain subjects, and sometimes I just needed to express my feelings. It is still not available to public.
Of course, I decided to write this as a way of staying in touch with my friends in USA after I came back to Syria. I think only 4 or 5 of those friends continued reading, the rest had better things to do, lol. But all of a sudden I had a different community of readers, not big, but varied. Every now and then someone gets interested enough to write or post a comment. In the beginning I was very involved, both in writing and reading other blogs. But I have spent some times away, and on the list of favorite blogs on my internet explorer many have taken a very long time away. Regardless, I was happy to meet, even only mentally, others who may or may not share the same ideas.
So why do we blog? There are millions of bloggers and blog servers, beside blogger.com, and it will be hard to summarize it all. But I think I can give it a try, and am sure if I Google the question there would be some answers somewhere, but I will not.
First, some, like me, would want to write about their experiences. Some try to make a point, whether social, political, religious, etc. Others have a talent for writing that they would find a place for publishing, readers, and commentators, for free I might add, all of which are usually friendly. Some bloggers, I think, like to have their voice heard whatever it is they have to say. And there must be zillions of other reasons.
In looking at blogs, I believe it would be interesting to stratify them into categories. Maybe I should do that someday with the Syrian blogs. There is the sarcastic, the funny, the critical, the political, the creative, the angry, the biography, the opinionated, the news parrot, the not-so-well-specified, and many others. I personally like the ones that are personal, and related to everyday experience and to personal thoughts, that has nothing to do with politics.
And I still don’t know why is blogspot banned in Syria?