Who Am I Chatting WIth?

It's an odd medium, this blogging thing. Odder some days than others, sure, but it's always weird in the sense of being a mongrel born from chatting with people on one side and some form of solitary writing on the other side.

I throw out thoughts. And sometimes I get responses. But who is it who reads the thoughts? And when you write on someone else's blog, do you write for a totally different audience? I find myself stilted and blocked when visiting like that, because some part of me thinks of it as visiting another person's home and so the rules of being the guest apply. I can't spit on the carpet or swear. But then perhaps those are my strengths? See what I mean? Probably not, as these thoughts might not interest someone who isn't blogging.

Who is it that we are chatting with? Think of how we converse on this blog, sometimes quite heatedly, think of how we respond to a comment someone else has made, how we have what looks like a conversation between a small number of people. But all that remains in the archives and ten months later someone can come in and read the discussion and leave a comment, like a ghost. Only I most likely see it there. Was that ghost part of the conversation? Where do the dead blog posts go?

And of course most people don't respond to any one post. Do they read? Does not knowing this matter?

Most days I don't think of any of this. Most days I just have lots of fun. But blogging is ephemeral, something that's here and then is not here. What was it that took place and where did it go?