Why do I blog? Should I stop?

This week I was once again contemplating whether to continue blogging or to suspend my blogging efforts to use the time in a more productive manner. That caused me to consider the question of why I blog to begin with. I get virtually no immediate financial benefit from blogging, but I do enjoy some degree of writing.

I find that blogging helps to clear my head. An idea pops into my head and sits there and consumes my attention for quite some time. If I take the time to "blog that thought", I simultaneoulsy capture the thought and make it available to others, and free up my mind to move on to other thoughts.

Since my blogged thoughts are now floating around out there in the Blogosphere and indexable by Google, I significantly increase the chances of "networking" with others who might have similar interests. That might also have some professional value.

I may in fact someday finally give up blogging, but probably not until I have some more productive outlet for getting rid of my "excess" thoughts.

I have tentatively decided that I need to do more "book" reading, but I'm unsure how deep to pursue this without consuming vast amounts of my limited free time. I'll probably spend some time today "browsing" at Barnes & Noble here in downtown Bellevue, WA. I'm torn between history, politics, philosophy, economics, law, or whether I should do more in-depth reading on technology.

-- Jack Krupansky