Why I've started a blog

Why have I started a blog?

There are a number of reasons why I’ve decided to start blogging: to help keep a record of what we’ve been up to as a family; to write about things that interest me; to vent; to help connect with other, like-minded people.

As someone who has actively used the internet since the late ‘90s, I’ve seen blogging rise from being a past time of the weird and the shut in (like most things on the internet) to becoming a genuine and wonderful way for people to connect, talk about things they’re doing or that they’re interested in and I have seen, first-hand, how passionate my wife is about her blog To Become Mum and all the opportunities it has afforded us since it began.

I’ve long been a user of forums – mostly gaming related – but have become disenfranchised with the whole thing in recent times, as the ones I used to frequent became less a place for people to talk about their interests, and more a place for wannabe forum ‘celebrities’ to try and twist and disrupt the place in the name of cheap laughs or trolling others. Poor moderation and failure to control those disruptive people stifled discussion, derailed interesting conversations and otherwise made the forums a toxic, hateful place to be.

So, why blogging, then? Is it because I only want to express my opinion and don’t want the opinions of others? No, not at all. It’s because I often find myself with things I want to say and no way to say them. These aren’t always important things, or even things that are interesting to anyone else but me, but having somewhere I can collate those thoughts, reflect on them and, hopefully, connect with others, can only be a good thing, right?

So that’s why I started this. I can’t promise it’ll take off, or that I’ll devote as much time to it as my wife does over at To Become Mum, but I’ll take things one post at a time and see how I get on – hopefully you’ll join me.