I’ve taken some ribbing for spending time composing long, thoughtful blog posts as well as e-mails.

Writing is a part of my core identity. I have written about my thoughts since I was a teenager. I feel that writing helps me think. Writing well helps me to think truer thoughts. I certainly derive tremendous satisfaction from crafting prose that captures my thoughts accurately. (There may be a genetic predisposition for this.) And I frequently refine and even change my opinions as I write. To me, anything worth thinking about is definitely worth writing about. Robert Atwan, editor of The Best American Essays, said that what makes a good essay is

to see an enactment of thought, and some process going on of thinking...There are people who are natural essayists. They ruminate. They'll deliberate over something. They'll look at it from multiple perspectives. Montaigne did that. Emerson did that. That quality is what you want to find in a good essay. You want to see that going on on the page, that mind-in-motion so to speak.

(You can hear him about 17 minutes into this broadcast.)

After filling a couple of journals with such writing, and after finding enjoyment in reading some of what I previously wrote, I wondered if others might find similar benefit from my thoughts. The blog became the perfect medium for me to make this possible.

So, I blog because others might enjoy some of what I write. Others might enjoy some of what I write because I do. And I write because it helps me think.