Does blogging make me a narcissistic egomaniac?

Upon the urging of a friend who felt I needed a creative outlet for writing (and ranting), I decided to start a blog.

This is not that blog.

I had actually tried starting one once before, for which I had great hopes, since I wrote the first entry with such creative fervor. It was so great that I kept reading it, tweaking it here, editing it there, and felt very pleased with myself, even though I started it because I was really procrastinating doing real work. But even so, I felt good about this because, gosh darn it, I had contributed my two cents to the Web for all to read, and I was now a card-carrying member of the Digerati.

I wrote a total of one entry. And other than myself, a total of one other person read it—the friend who suggested I write it in the first place. Not exactly my delirious visions of grandeur of taking the Internet publishing world by storm. I poured so much creative energy into that first post that I never wrote another one. I attribute this to not having a personal computer at home. But it’s really because I’m lazy, and my life isn’t interesting enough to warrant even Internet publishing.

But I’m deciding to give it another go-around. I scrapped the original blog, deciding to start from scratch with a new one, which I’m feeling really good about right now. This time will be different, I said to myself, I just know it.

Either that, or I’ll have to bury this blog like its predecessor into the depths of a digital graveyard because another six months will have gone by without me posting anything. Well, I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, I call this blog Lapses in Logic because I find that I like to bitch and moan, rant and rave, complain and kvetch, and every other cliché coupling of verbs, about a lot of stuff that gets on my nerves—my pet peeves, annoying people, stuff in this world that I find really irritating because it goes against my own natural logic—which, naturally, is the logic I believe should run the world.

Which brings me to my first question, which was the first question I posed in my previous first post, so I’ll just cut and paste from there: Does blogging make me a narcissistic egomaniac? Even the way I pose that question—using two words that essentially describe the same state of self-involvement, just because one isn’t vivid enough to get MY point across—made me hesitant about starting a blog.

I admit that even before my friend suggested it, I had thought about starting one, but thought it a bit weird to write down my thoughts and then force them onto others in cyberspace. I admit that at times I thought bloggers started blogs because they were self-important and just liked to write about themselves. But then I realized, hey, I’m self-important and I like to write about myself, so maybe blogging is a perfect fit for me. Thanks guys! You’re such good listeners.

Anyway, I still think I won’t be doing much marketing of this blog, at least not initially. I can’t seem to say just yet: “Hey everyone! I’ve just started a blog! Please read it often. Then post comments that provide some affirmation of my brilliance in bringing you irrelevant yet enjoyable topics. You’ll marvel at my ability to inject creativity, craft, and chutzpah into 500 words or less. Anyway, considering how verbose I can be, I highly doubt I’ll keep it to 500 words.

So here’s to second chances. I hope this run goes better. And I promise not to use this blog just to complain. But I’m not always one for keeping my promises.

(R.I.P. Pursuit of Trivia Blog: 7/4/04-7/4/04).