why even keep an online journal?

Sometimes I wonder why I even keep an online journal. It’s a valid thing to wonder about, given the fact that I see many people start up a journal, only to quit. Many people get into things and then wonder why they even started in the first place. Many times I myself have wondered that very same thing, wondering whether to just delete the whole thing and start something else.

I suppose that there is this need to be heard. That it’s simply another mode of expression and communication, just like the fact that performing music in front of an audience satisfies a need for expression and communcation to others.

I guess, the best analogy would stem from ancient times, before television and the internet, when people would gather ’round the campfire and tell stories of days past, or of battles won and lost.

Everyone loves a good story. And I feel people do crave a need to tell a good story.

I just wonder about it all sometimes.

Yet at the same time, in my mind’s eye, I see that playing music and writing in my online journal is really just the same thing. That it’s a means to express, to communicate. I could be playing piano, and even if it’s just background music for a group of diners at a restaurant, I’m communicating to people in a subtle sort of way… because my music becomes a big part of the ambience that sets the mood for the dining experience.

In the online journal world, I see myself as someone attempting to communicate to others… to tell stories, share pictures, ideas, thoughts, feelings… I do believe THAT is the common denominator, the need to communicate and express oneself.

Of course, the ones who can communicate best and relate to others can create a large following in this online world. But at the same time, one shouldn’t feel discouraged because one has a small audience of readers. One should be happy enough that one is being read, if only by a few.

I guess, after all that’s been said and done, I will continue to write here because there is that need to write things down for my own personal benefit, and there is also that need to be able to communicate to others in another form of medium… the internet.

Right now I’m feeling a little bit like that actress who had the plastic surgery to change her face after she made the big hit movie, only to find that people didn’t recognize her any more and she fell into obscurity!

Well, this is in regard to my having changed my site and getting a new domain name. My stats have definitely gone down lately, and that’s okay I suppose. I’m not going to lose sleep over it. This new domain IS situated in a new location and space far away from the infinitely more popular RBJ. But then again, this should be considered new frontier for me.

I’m just glad the few people who still come, are in fact still coming here… for, I’ll be the first to admit that I do seek an audience. It’s just this need, like I’m sure our ancestors had, to share our stories around the campfire, to share our feelings, thoughts, our triumphs and failures…

…what better way to do it than to share it on the web.