What the Hell Is a "Blog"??

What the hell is a blog? What is the purpose of this activity? Again and again I feel positively shown-up, slapped in the face by the fact that others doing this seem to know something I don't, have something I lack, and/or they are PRETENDING TO. Because they seem to have definite aims. Or if not aims, I don't know. Goals? Motives? A bit of the old je ne sais raison d'être?

Whereas I, I have no idea what I'm doing! I'm out here, "winging" it! I'm like a kid, playing with a big cardboard box that I've cut windows in - but with no real conception of what that box is really for.

Well, wait - that might be a bit inaccurate. I was kind of a bright kid, as I recall. I'm sure I had a decent grasp of the purpose of a box. But that early head start hasn't prepared me for life! Or for blogging.

I like doing it. But is that a reason? That's kind of self-serving isn't it? Others seem far more virtuous and focused on the needs of others. On blogging as if providing a service. What the hell kind of service can I provide? Here, on this blog, I mean. I'm plenty useful in other areas. This crisis of purpose is very much blog-specific.

I don't know. What kind of service can I provide? How can I take my native talents, how can I adapt them to this milieu? And for whom am I doing it, ultimately?

Maybe I should focus on the talents. I have plenty of talents. Still, in terms of converting them into blog ideas, it all seems so scattershot, so very far from cohesive. Here, let me to offer you all some services! Pick as many as you like, and watch me come through in SPADES:

• E-mail me a picture of yourself in a hat. I will post it on the blog tell you if it looks good on you or not.
• E-mail me a drawing you made, I will post it on the blog and absolutely tear it into its constituent aspects with my most stringent fine-arts critique! You will be left feeling unspared, but dealt with fairly.
• Ask me my take on ANY MOVIE. I'm not going to craft some full scale in-depth review, but if I've seen it, I'll pull out the single most interesting aspect or two for you and make some observations you might find surprising. If I haven't seen it, my observations will seem potentially even more surprising.
• Give me three telling facts about yourself and then ask me to guess your sign. I will reply back with a long, previously-written pasted-in rant explaining exactly why you should definitely not put any stock in astrology. Or something similar. I haven't written it yet, so maybe I shouldn't judge before I do. But I suspect that's about where I'd end up coming down on the issue.

See, I'm all over the map, here. My talents don't suit me to be doing this! I constantly find myself embarrassed and ashamed when I see other bloggists out there doing their thing, and they seem to know who they're doing it for and why they're doing it, and they have a level of dedication there. And what have I got? In a word: smartassery.

Is that enough? Hell, peoples. I don't know. Y'all tell me.