System 13

I saw this meme at John Baker’s blog. I wasn’t tagged by anyone to do it, but it looked like a fun meme, so without further ado…

1. Why do you blog?

Good question. Really good question. My initial thought on that question is, “I don’t really know why I blog.” If I dig a bit deeper, I come up with a few different things.

• It helps me understand the world. A professor I have this quarter has us writing lengthy journal entries on select course material. His reasoning? Writing about something helps you understand it better. Writing about something makes you think critically about the subject. Having a vague concept of something and being able to write articulately about something are two very different things. I blog because it makes me think.
• Related to the above reason, I blog because (hopefully) it helps develop my writing skills. Being able to write well is a wonderful skill to have, so I figure I might as well work on making my writing better.
• It’s fun. It’s an enjoyable hobby. It lets me meet new people with similar (and not so similar!) interests.
• It lets me bounce ideas off of other people. This brings to mind a post I saw over here. The gist of the post? Don’t get caught up in the numbers of blogging, i.e., “what, I only have 15 regular readers?!” In comparison to some blogging giants, that’s nothing. But as noted in the post above, that’s 15 people I wouldn’t communicate with on a daily basis if I didn’t blog. That’s a pretty cool point, I think. If I get even one person a day to smile, laugh, or think via my little (tiny, tiny, tiny) corner of the intarweb, so be it. That’s great.

2. Which author and/or book has most influenced you?

This may seem like a canned response at first, but it’s not: J.R.R. Tolkien. One of my older brothers loaned me his copy of The Hobbit when I was 9 or 10. I read it, then moved on to Lord of the Rings. Reading his books sparked off a number of interests, most notably my interest in fantasy and medieval history. My interest in medieval history has slowly grown to be an interest in history as a whole, not just a specific time period. Hell, history’s my major in college. All from reading a few books about hobbits, wizards, and a ring.

3. Which three blogs do you most visit?

That’s kind of difficult to answer, seeing as how I have quite a few blogs in my feed reader, and I read them all pretty much equal amounts. However, I’ll take a stab at it anyway. Just be forewarned, my stab is probably totally off the mark.

• WordPress.com Blog (which I can’t link to directly, beacuse wordpress.com/blog redirects to the wordpress.com page). Basically, the blog that feeds all of the WordPress.com news stuff. My blog is obviously hosted on WordPress.com. I like being in ‘the loop’ of what’s going on.
• Nowhere Zen NJ. A personal blog about Buddhism. Some really interesting thoughts by this fellow.
• Bright Meadow, because she’s intelligent, funny, and because of the hat picture. She knows what I’m talking about. I’d link to it, but much to my chagrin, she’s removed it from her site. Bring back the hat picture!

4. Why do you read fiction?

Because I can learn from it. Because I enjoy it. Because it lets me experience worlds that, without fiction writing, wouldn’t exist.

5. What makes you laugh?

This shirt. The Discworld series. My dumb dog, Gandalf, who is quite far from being even remotely wizardly. This video of some guy lighting his hand on fire while trying to do Zippo lighter tricks. Sluggy Freelance. The Google search results for ‘failure’, as well as this.

And now, for some tagging of other people. Jay, Cas, Billy, you guys are up (if you want – I know some people really hate these things.)