I have just stumbled upon Chris Lott’s blog which has provided some sage like words to explain why I share my thoughts on a blog and …. the words were written 500 years ago by Michel Montaigne.
[An account of a trivial event] would be rather pointless were it not for the instruction that I derived from it for myself […] Now as Pliny says, each man is a good education to himself, provided he has the capacity to spy on himself from close up. What I write here is not my teaching, but my study; it is not a lesson for others, but for me.
And yet it should not be held against me if I publish what I write. What is useful to me may also by accident be useful to another. Moreover, I am not spoiling anything, I am using only what is mine. If I play the fool, it is at my expense and without harm to anyone.
If I had written to seek the world’s favor, I should have bedecked myself better, and should present myself in a studied posture. I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself I portray. My defects will here be read to the life, and also my natural form, as far as respect for the public has allowed. Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature’s first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked.
Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.
My blog provides me with an opportunity to make sense of what I do for myself as well as sharing my work and thoughts so that others by chance or accident might profit or provide me with perspective.
