On blogging

So what is blogging really? Is it an irrelevant self-absorbed form of expressionism – akin to the common diary – but with an exhibitionistic aspect to it? Look!, we say. Here are my (possibly censored) inner-most thoughts on life, religion, society or why the Leafs suck this year? Or is it more than that? The answer probably exists on two levels – on the first, blogging has the potential to be a permanent, immutable representation of the thoughts of an individual or a generation or a society as a whole. Blogs may have the permanence of a hummingbird’s wing-beat or the lasting impact of a trilobite fossil. Who knows? On the second level – blogging is an almost-mass-media way of publishing the worst possible mindless crap to a vast potential audience. Is this such crap? Perhaps -- you get to be the judge of that. Are the instant messaging conversations of teenagers, like, you know, any better or worse, or more or less deserving of a place in the vast permanent digital record than my contemporaneous thoughts?