For the love of dialogue

Why do you blog? About a week ago, Jack explained the objectives that motivate him. Here's the condensed version:

• This is a place where I can air out my thoughts about life and the experiences I have had and will have;
• It is a place where I expect at some point in the future my children, grandchildren and beyond will be able to learn more about who I am/was;
• the blog offers me an opportunity to continually practice my writing so that I can work upon honing my skills;
• maybe someone will discover me and hire me to write a book;
• and perhaps the most important thing is that this blog offers me the opportunity to interact with people I might not meet otherwise.

I'd like to pick up on Jack’s last point and explore it a bit.

I blog for the love of dialogue. In my day-to-day interactions, I find few people are willing to discuss meaningful issues in any depth. But in the blogosphere, I can seek out people who are exploring the subjects that fascinate me:  religion, law, politics, history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, art — basically any discipline that offers insight into human individuals and societies.

By dialogue, I do not necessarily mean disagreement. Bloggers are too quick to find fault with one another! Political blogs get boring pretty quickly for this reason:  the exchange of views consists of punches and counter-punches which never add up to anything.

It’s OK to disagree with me; my ego is strong enough to cope with a little rough-and-tumble. But a good dialogue adds one insight to another, creating a snowball effect.

Early in our relationship, Mary P. and I came up with a simile. "When we talk," one of us said, "it's like we're building with bricks:  I lay a brick, you lay a brick, I lay one, you lay one …. The finished structure is something neither one of us could have built on our own."

At this point I must interject that I have nothing against "lurkers". In fact, I think the term is unfairly pejorative:  surely a lurker is some pervert who hides in the bushes outside your house and peers into your bedroom window!

People who read Simply Put aren’t perverts … no more than anyone else, at any rate. When no one leaves a comment, I take comfort in the fact that my tracker shows that people are still visiting. So thank you, lurkers, one and all.

But I love a good dialogue. Consider my recent post on presuppositions, for example. One person after another contributed an insight, adding a brick to the foundation I had laid:  Misanthrope, Mrs. Aginoth, Mr. Aginoth, and Snaars. Go back a little further, to my post on sharia law, and others make a contribution:  Aaron, Jack, and 49erDweet. And once in a long while I hit on a topic that draws comments even from casual visitors.

I enjoy writing, and I benefit greatly from the discipline of setting my thoughts in order for others to explore. But it requires a significant investment of time. Without the dialogue, which I find so stimulating, I would quickly lose the motivation to blog.

That's why my blogroll is entitled, Cast of characters. I have the lead role here at Simply Put, but you share the stage with me.

Monologues are boring; your comments are what make the experience interesting.