Monday Musings: The Inherent Narcissism of Blogging and the Struggle to Not Appear Like a Self-Obsessed Moron

Last movie watched: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Currently reading: Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

Currently listening to: Tyr: Land

Hello.  This is my first blog post.  I’m a bit nervous.  What?  Oh, nice to meet you too.  So, you probably noticed those three little lines right above.  Yeah, I’ll be doing that a lot, kinda like a conversation starter.  You know, favorite kitchen utensil, earliest memory, etc.  Because there’s no better way to get to know someone than to learn they’re obsessed with meat cleavers.   (wire whisks!)

This brings me to a problem though: The Inherent Narcissism of Blogging and the Struggle to Not Appear Like a Self-Obsessed Moron.   See, it’s all about me.  My blog.  My thoughts.  My likes.  My dislikes.  Other blogs might have a statement or a real point.  Be it political or informative, humor or advice, craft or DIY.  What have I got?  Not sure yet.  But whatever I blog about, it’s really all going to come back to me.   That doesn’t really sit well.  I don’t want to be a self-obsessed moron.  Are all bloggers self-obsessed morons? 

It’s strange, but that thought never occurred to me before I started writing this.  Of course blogs are all about the person who writes them.  That’s the point, isn’t it?  I am now the portal through which you experience information.  So along with whatever wisdom I impart, you get me along with it.  So no matter what I say or what type of blog I write, it all ends up being about me and how I think.

Any time I start thinking like that though, alarm bells go off and my sensible brain yanks me back for a chat.

--That’s not a good way to be thinking.

What?

--That it’s all about you.  You shouldn’t think like that.

Why not?

--Because it’s not all about you.  And you know what happens to people who think like that.

‘sigh.’  Yeah…they get arrogant and annoying and presumptuous and I hate people like that.

--Good.  So don’t be one.

Fine, fine…

But once my sensible brain has finished giving me a stern talking to, I get all depressed because I was only one thought away from becoming my worst nightmare and I’ve got to keep slapping down my own thoughts so they don’t do anything stupid.  Repeat after me, ‘I will not be a self-obsessed moron.  I do not like self-obsessed morons.  It is not all about me.  Even though I’m writing a blog that’s all about me—‘

--Stop it—bad llama.

But what if it’s not all about me?

What about the other side of the equation?  And by that I mean all of you.

What if the point isn’t that I’m blogging to make you listen to me because I’m a narcissist who thinks I deserve it, but because I want to share something with you, to give you something that you might enjoy to make life just that much better.  Kind of like a hug.

Now, I’m not talking about the awkward ‘goodbye, person I’ve just met who’s a good friend of my friend and therefore deserves more than a handshake,’ or the limp return hug to the hug-a-saurous co-worker.  I’m talking about the real thing, the real hug you give your bestest friend in the world whom you haven’t seen in months--

~You know, you just used ‘bestest’ and ‘whom’ in the same sentence.

So what?

~’Bestest’ isn’t a word.  And no one uses ‘whom’ anymore.  It’s falling out of use.

And your point?

~You can’t use a nonsense word and an esoteric one at the same time. 

Who says?

~The English language.  And every grammar textbook ever.

I hate grammar.  And bestest is so a word.  Go away.

Ps. Your last sentence was a fragment.

~Argh!

—I’m talking about a serious hug, the type of hug where you pour so much of yourself into it that the person you’re hugging knows how much you love them, because you just wrapped them in love and tried to smother them with it.  Because in a real hug, both people are doing that, and the funny thing is no matter how much of yourself you’re putting into a hug, as long as the other person is doing the same, you always get more back than you put in. 

            Let’s do fake math on it.  Say, I put in a 5, and you put in a 5, but somehow we both end up with 7’s.  No lie.  But I think Shakespeare said it best:

‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.’ –Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

            Impossible you say?  Then you’ve never really been hugged, and I wish I could make it my personal mission to show you what it really feels like.  *big giant bear-hug*  (because those are the bestest hugs ever)

            Getting back to my original metaphor of Blogging being like a hug: if I pour all I can of myself into writing it, and you pour all that you can into reading, it’s not about narcissism any more or it being all about me.  It’s all about us.  It’s about the hug.  It’s about not feeling alone anymore or un-liked or unappreciated or unknown.  It’s knowing that there are people like you out there to whom you can entrust everything because you know they’ll do the same for you.  It’s safety and friendship and overall it should be fun.  Because life could use more fun.  And what’s not fun about hugs?