To blog, or not to blog…

Over here at istherefood.com, Dan has posted his 12 month anniversary post (and bravo on that one Dan). It makes for a cracking read, and posts the question “Why do you blog?”. And for me that’s an interesting one. I remember when Dan was convincing me that I should start blogging (and it seems like a long time ago now but it’s only around 8 months ago) and I remember thinking “But what would I write? What could I possibly be thinking that anyone will want to read?”. And at times even now I still have these thoughts. However my stats would tend to paint a different story.

Whilst I’m not hitting the levels that other blogs will hit, I still receive far more traffic than I ever thought I would. And I have to admit I’d love to know what people think when they find psychoticmonkey.co.uk. Do they wonder what the inane ramblings actually mean? Do they wonder about the person behind the monkey mask? Do they think that everything I write is a load of rubbish?? I really don’t know.

You see for me, blogging is something that I want to do. When I first started my blog I really didn’t know what to write about. I posted a few things about games I was playing and that’s kind of continued. The majority of my postings now relate to games (as Dan refers to in his post). I post the odd bit about football, a very (very) small bit about photography and aviation (2 hobbies I often combine) and then just some general musings. But being able to have a platform and an e-voice is all I ever wanted to have. I’ve never been in this for the money or personal gain. I don’t feel the need (like some) to pass off the work of others as my own to make a name for myself. I just enjoy sharing my opinions, no matter how controversial others may feel they are.

Reading Dan’s article has made me think about what I want to achieve from blogging. It’s a very tricky question. Ask most people why they do something that they enjoy and I think the majority of responses would be “Because I enjoy it”. And that’s what blogging gives to me. I do it for no other reason than the enjoyment. That is both the reason I do it, and also what I want to achieve from it. I don’t care if I don’t take millions of hits a month (I’d have given up long before now if I did want that) although give me millions of hits a month and I’ll be flattered. At the end of the day, I use this as a kind of electronic brain dump on certain subjects (there are some things I will never post about for various reasons).

So where does this leave me? Well I guess that as long as I’m enjoying it, I’ll carry on blogging. When it comes to the point that I’m no longer having fun, then I won’t blog. I’ll pack it away and forget about it and move on to the next thing (don’t worry I don’t think I’ll ever move across to podcasts!!) whatever that may be. In the mean time, grab a comfy chair, put your feet up, peel yourself a banana, and get ready for more Monkey thoughts in the very near future…