This is a snippet of my late-evening train of thought on blogging and the start of a more personal and open style of blogging I’d like to embrace.

I really enjoy blogging. From the moment I created my nature blog mudfooted.com back in 2009. However, over the last years I have discovered again and again it is challenging to find the right balance with self-criticism and careful considerations to actually publish my ideas. It often takes considerable time to properly research background information before publishing new posts. Furthermore, having high standards to deliver interesting/fascinating/in-depth/popular content makes it hard to actually publish those drafts waiting in my ideas folder.

The thing is, publishing blog posts makes your statement permanent (in a similar way that the ‘popular’ hacked pictures of celebrities are non-erasable from the www). At the same time I think it’s also simply the case that I feel a bit double about blogging or anything related to posting ‘stuff’ online, may it be Facebook, twitter, or a personal blog. What is really the underlying reason for our thirst for social sharing?

On the one hand it may feel great to share ones knowledge or opinion and engage with others, but on the other hand it’s just a selfish act. In a similar way as most people get happy because of yet another ‘like’ on their Facebook post, many bloggers and tweeters may be searching for the same ‘social high’. Although the permanence of blogging is one of the reasons for my restrictive blogging output, it is at the same time what I really like about blogging. This is therefore the start of a more personal and open style of blogging, perhaps not always that structured or polished, but giving me the simply enjoyment of permanence of my expressed thoughts.