still pondering

So I've had all this spare time over my Christmas break where I promised myself I would do nothing but blog, blog, blog (well maybe not nothing else, eating and sleeping should fit in there somewhere), but of course, I am entering my second to last week of break and this is my first post. I don't know what the deal is. Again, I was laying restless in my bed last night (I guess I do my best thinking during my insomniatic bursts) and I thought, not only am I apprehensive about putting stuff on the internet that is personal, I am also anxious about publishing stuff online because I feel like I am not worthy. This inadequacy comes from the fact that when I read someone's column from a newspaper, I feel like this person was carefully selected because of their persona and humor and writing in general. So, who am I to write this blog, or column? No one selected me. No one chose me to because they thought I was witty enough to be in their newspaper. No one pays 50 cents to hear what I have to say.

I feel that blogging is like forfeiting a sense of self. You are no longer who you think you are (or who you've been trying to be ever since you got out of high school). Rather, you are subject to whoever happens to "next blog" onto your page and what they think of you. Are you worthy of being followed? I disdain this idea of being "followed" because it sounds like a popularity contest. Is Blogger just another route through which people attempt to fill the voids of their meaningless lives? Under this notion, "followers" on one's blog hold no greater status than one's friends on Facebook. In the same way that we have those friends on Facebook whom we admire from afar, I feel that people who's blogs you follow are people whom you admire from even farther. Perhaps I am looking too far into this, but it is a very strange feeling that this idea of blogging gives me. I simultaneously resent and obsess over the idea of having followers. I think, how ridiculous is it that I feel I must have followers to validate what I have to say? Then, at the same time, I think, Wow, how cool is it that these people want to read my stuff. It's pretty cool.

So, it seems that I concede to wanting popularity. Oh well, it just makes me more human.