Bloggers on Vacation in the Real World

May 25, 2001

It seems like everybody's "taking a break" from their blog and "getting back to the real world." It's funny, but I think that this trend (and that's what it is) is being driven by a couple of the "big guys." Kind of strange how emotion, depression, dissatisfaction, can become a trend on the Web.

I think it's only natural, though. The people who really birthed the whole blogging phenomenon are obsessive personalities. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing, and God knows my personality is entirely too obsessive. Obsessive personalities are what drive innovation and creation more than anything else. It's thanks to those obsessive personalities that blogs and personal web publishing came back into vogue over the last two years.

But just because the bigwigs and their followers are taking a break from things doesn't mean that blogs, online journals, etc. are any less important or less relevant. It just means that everyone's starting to find a balance in their life. I feel kind of lucky in that respect—I have a buttload of web sites and something gets updated almost daily on any of them, but I feel like I have a pretty good balance. I'm not blogging every damn thing that happens to me every day and I'm not living my life on the web rather than live and in person. Rather, I'm enjoying living and my web sites are just a part of it... not a replacement for anything, not some extension of my life that I don't tell people in the "real world" about... it's just part of me. As much of the "real world" as going to the supermarket. Period.

I blog pretty much daily, but if I feel like taking ten days off, I do so without announcement and without guilt. I know my site will be there when I "get back" from whatever I'm doing... it's not going anywhere.

And either am I.