Why I blog

Or part of the reason, anyway.

Via Kottke, I stumbled across a post called “10 Myths About Introverts” by a writer named Carl King.

The post looks at a book about introverts, that mysterious order of humans to which I (and King) belong who turn our energies inwards rather than out to the world. The book, given a self-helpy title “The Introvert Advantage (How to Thrive in an Extrovert World)”, does helpfully note that introversion is chemically rooted:

If the science behind the book is correct, it turns out that Introverts are people who are over-sensitive to Dopamine, so too much external stimulation overdoses and exhausts them. Conversely, Extroverts can’t get enough Dopamine, and they require Adrenaline for their brains to create it. Extroverts also have a shorter pathway and less blood-flow to the brain. The messages of an Extrovert’s nervous system mostly bypass the Broca’s area in the frontal lobe, which is where a large portion of contemplation takes place.</blockquote>

Nifty. The science behind me. But what struck me was a list King wrote after that introduction, his titular 10 Myths. All are worthy points, but one above all for me:

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.

Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

And that’s why I blog. Day in and day out, I absorb information through reading, conversations, listening to music, watching movies, and more reading. That information prompts my mind to wander off on weird tangents, jumping from idea to idea and occasionally landing on something I find interesting. But so many thoughts, and so few people with the patience or inclination to hear about them.

Having someone to “share … discoveries with” is important not only as an emotional drive but because doing so forces one to translate those thoughts into a form other people can understand. In the absence of someone with whom I can talk about my ideas, see what they think, absorb feedback and adjust, the next best thing is writing, which gives order to the chaos of my thoughts and allows anyone so inclined to hear about my discoveries and let me know what they think.

Hooray for the Internet.