On The Disappearing of Blogs

If you have been on the blogosphere long enough, one of the sadder things that happens is that eventually your favorite voices seem to go dark.

It is understandable, of course.  I suspect for 99% of us, we have other things that we actually do to make a living.  Blogging is an outlet, something that meets needs for those that want to write but never feel they can or those that need to write because they know no other way or those that feel they have something to offer the world through their lives and what they are doing with them.

I probably fall into the category of I write because I now know no other way - even after I figured out my career as a nascent author was not really going anywhere I continued to write anyway.  It is a good intellectual challenge and allows me to continue to keep bits of my own dreams alive and well in a period where they all too frequently feel as if they are falling into the chaos of real life.

I am always grateful to anyone who keeps a blog, no matter how irregularly.  It is a commitment one makes no matter what else is going on, no matter who reads, to keep putting something up.

But blogs are like our friends and families in real life:  they move away, they lose contact, sometimes they die.

One of my more favorite bloggers, Pioneer Preppy at The Small Hold, himself does not blog at all anymore.  To see his blog roll is, in many ways, to walk through an electronic graveyard.  So many voices which for one reason or another have chosen to go silent.

It happens here as well - if you look over to the right of the page, you will see some of my own friends that moved on or simply stopped posting.  Which is okay, of course - lives change, people change.  It just saddens me, the same way the passing of a friend or a favorite restaurant does: you will never (virtually) hear there voice or point of view again, see their world, hear events through their eyes.

This is not meant to be a melancholy post (although by this point, who knows), but I will try to end on a happy note:

1)  To those who have blogged but for whatever reason have chosen not to any long, thank you.  I miss your voice but am grateful for the time you shared your lives with us.

2) For those who continue to blog, thank you for your continuing dedication to something that is truly (in a lot of ways) a hobby.  You continue to inspire me with your regular (or irregular) dedication to posting.

Stay writing, my friends.