The Bee-log Habit

Sitting in Tryst (a coffee shop in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C.—used to have a cool website but I can't find it now) reading blogs seems like a good time to mention those for whom the blogging never stops:

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes, like Mr. Wiggins, quietly so as not to call attention to their habit.

Who needs work, friends, or any other diversions when there's blogging to be done? I mean, I'm sure I'd be enjoying my summer job a lot more if I'd never heard of blogging before. Damn this evil habit! ;-) Could it be that blogs are just another harsh technological mistress?

Perhaps what's most remarkable about this article is its obsession with making money. The writer seems completely flummoxed by the fact that people spend time blogging and get no money for it:

Some compulsive bloggers take their obligation to extremes, blogging at the expense of more financially rewarding tasks.

Mr. Wiggins has missed deadline after deadline at Searcher, an online periodical for which he is a paid contributor.

Barbara Quint, the editor of the magazine, said she did all she could to get him to deliver his columns on time. Then she discovered that Mr. Wiggins was busily posting articles to his blog instead of sending her the ones he had promised, she said. "Here he is working all night on something read by five second cousins and a dog, and I'm willing to pay him," she said.

Ms. Quint has grown more understanding of his reasons, if not entirely sympathetic. "The Web's illusion of immortality is sometimes more attractive than actual cash," she said.

Gasp! People are doing something they enjoy rather than something that pays them money!?!? What is the world coming to!?

Anthony at Gates of the Mountains has a great response to this article:

To twist a Socratic paraphrase: although the unblogged life may still be worth living, the unlived life is definitely not worth blogging.

Very true, yet isn't one of the addicting facets of blogs the fact that one person's unlived life is the next person's thrilling adventure?

Am I living if I look around and tell you that the coffee shop is packed and one of the barristas is wearing a bright green t-shirt that says "Ithaca is COLD"? An older male patron is painting with watercolors and a young woman has taken a seat at his table and begun reading what look like coursepacks for college or graduate classes. They appear to be strangers, but they're willing to share. A woman has appeared at our table dressed in full biking gear, helmet and gloves and all. There's something about the smell of a biker that is not offensive, even if it is distinctive. People tend to sit in close proximity here. Next to me is a man who seems to have walked into the coffee shop w/a "venti" coffee from Starbucks. He ordered a water and is reading the paper. Some might call that rude, but perhaps he also ordered food? Tryst doesn't seem to mind. It takes all kinds. Even those of us with unlived lives that will nevertheless be blogged.

Posted May 31, 2004 10:28 AM | meta-blogging