Wednesday, July 06, 2005

I have to say the whole “ blog” thing is rather intimidating. It takes a little arrogance to think anyone wants to read what I might write. It also takes some vulnerability to write and put part of you out here for anyone to judge, critique or just plain read. So I have to ask the question. Why write at all? Here’s as good an answer as I’ve heard. It comes from a little known author Harold E. Kohn.
Does a person write because he is unusually skilled at handling words? Not necessarily. At least the writer himself is never satisfied with his compositions and often brutally assails himself for what he has allowed to go to print. And it would be as accurate to say that a man is skilled because he writes as it is to declare he writes because he is skilled. Indeed a person must do some writing before he can know whether or not he has “the art”. Robert Benchely once said, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Wherever writing is an art rather then a mere trade this basic impulse is certain to underlie all the rest- the desire for sharing the fruits of ones thoughts.
Hopefully the desire to share ones thoughts is enough reason to write and enough reason to read others writing. So here begins my small insignificant contribution to blog land. Hopefully all our shared thoughts will add up to something meaningful.

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