Guest post: What’s so great about bloggers? by Simon Ogden

Hello everyone, my name is Simon, and I’m a blog nerd. At least, I get the impression that’s the label a lot of my old friends have stamped me with. You see, I wasn’t always this way. A scant three years ago I also thought the word ‘blog’ was a weird and slightly gross thing to say. My internet diet consisted pretty much of my Hotmail account (I know, right?) and checking the movie listings. I sent photos to friends in their original file sizes. I thought HTML was an abbreviation for my email program. I was about 25 years old. Now, I’m a capital-B Blogger, and I can say it in any given room without even having had much to drink. It’s something I’m proud of, and I’m proud of the many friends I’ve made through my immersion into blogging, one of which is most certainly Raul Pacheco, whom I’m delighted to be helping out today in his most worthy effort to raise funds and money for the BC Cancer Foundation.

The reason I’m such a loud and proud proponent for the craft of blogging, both the writing and the steady RSS absorption thereof, can be explained in one simple little word.

Passion.

The blogosphere to me is like some vast garden of discourse that is cultivated by the sheer force of the passion of an ever-growing society of diverse humans who, despite whatever else is going on in our lives, are simply compelled to gush forth all of the thoughts, ideas, questions, fears and wonderment about their particular thing to whomever would listen. Bloggers literally are so passionate about the important things in their lives that they must connect with other humans over it. That’s a rare trait, and that’s a community I want to be a part of.

I’m actually in utter disbelief that comparatively few of us blog, in any niche. I’m a theatre blogger that started my site when I formed my current company, because I was so excited that I couldn’t shut up about it. You can find blogs right now by passionate people writing on pretty much any subject you can think of and a million you can’t, from environmental issues (right, Raul?) to goofy kitty cats. But aside from my wife (who has a much more universally interesting blog than me), no one from my pre-blogging circle of friends have blogs of their own. They all facebook, sure, some are on twitter, but long-form, issue-anatomizing, open discussion blogs? Nada. In the hotel that I work at I am literally the only blogger out of the entire staff, and I am thus the ‘bloggy dude that works the bar’. It’s remains a fringe preoccupation, it would seem.

From this I can draw only one conclusion: the blogoshphere has become an easily-searchable repository of the ideas of some of the most passionate people on the planet. People that are so passionate about whatever it is that gets them out of bed in the morning that they need to share that with anyone who will give them the time of day (a notably expensive commodity in a society trying to keep up with a shaky economy and light-speed advancements in technology). And most of us do it for free. Sure, there are some that have figured out a way to make some money at it, and why shouldn’t they get paid for something that they’re that they’re passionate about? We should all be so lucky. Or smart, I guess. But most of us do it because, well, we can, and feel that we should, and from that one compulsion I get an unceasing river of inspiration. And that’s enough to get me out of bed in the morning.

Thank you for your passion.

Editor’s note: Simon Ogden is the force behind The Next Stage Magazine, one of Vancouver’s finest blogs about all things theatre. He also happens to create the most amazing Sazerac in the whole Vancouver. And he is a good friend of mine too You can follow Simon on Twitter here.

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This is Entry # 10 of 49

If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating to the BC Cancer Foundation. You can find my donation page by clicking here. Every bit helps. Thank you in advance!

Related posts:

1. Guest post: Passionate about literacy by Catherine Novak
2. Guest post: Passionate about connections, by Jennifer Priest
3. Guest post: What is Raul passionate about? by Gus Fosarolli
4. Guest post: Blogging for a cause and the BC Cancer Foundation by Nick Locke
5. Guest post: Lust for life, by Terra Atrill (aka ZoeyJane)