A Guest Post

This is a guest post from Ian Scott Paterson. Check his blog.

The power of words has, for a long time, fascinated me. Every deed since the birth of history has been prefaced by words. God spoke and life came into existence. A persuasion ushered Man to his fall. Words have initiated and ended war. They have inspired and inverted nations. They stand alone as a dominant power in the universe. We writers are responsible for wielding this formidable ability and using it, for good or ill, to change the world. Through words alone we can divulge what rests inside mankind. A soft whisper in the ear of a sleeping giant can awaken him to uproot the weeds and reveal the beauty resting on the forest floor.

I first began writing to foster myself to greatness.  I fantasized day and night of immortality. I would stand beaming in my dreams, to the left of me a rapturous C. S. Lewis and to my right an elated John Steinbeck. I would watch the world ahead of me and see the transformation I would bring. And best of all, I would be celebrated for it. The great Ian Scott Paterson. Standing now in reality, my pompousness sickens me.

As writers, we inevitably immerse ourselves in story. My favorites are dark epics with one concrete, perfect hero who realizes that in the end, he must sacrifice himself in humility to save those who could in no other way save themselves. Wading around in those stories, I felt great disdain for the Villain. He is the same as the Hero in every way; only his desire is to use his greatness to advocate his own power and left the less fortunate to die by their own, ignorant hands.

When I put myself into these stories, however, I find I’m not wearing Hero’s shoes. I’m atop a dark mountain, looking down at a world fighting in the chaos I created, laughing maniacally. I was the Villain. All irony intended, my soap box was desecrated by words in stories.

I realized, and am still realizing, the mindset of a hero. He does not care about greatness. He cares about the people his greatness can affect. The greatest thing words ever taught me was that you can’t care about becoming great. No one who was ever great for anything good did it for personal glory. True, lasting change happens not when someone wants to be remembered for changing something, but when they see the change that needs to happen and will stop at nothing until it’s done.

We writers are Atlas. The world is poised on our shoulders, spinning round and round. The slightest shrug can shake nations, we need only to look up and decide which way to lean.

What It Is to Blog

Truth be told, I am not much more than a kid playing make believe, and I'm playing with some pretty dangerous toys.

I like to pretend that I'm a real writer. Heck, we all must. That's why we blog. We want to be read and to feel somehow validated by the comments of our plethora of readers. In my own mind, the approval of readers proves that my opinions are not worthless.

The more time I spend roaming around the blogosphere, admiring the words and works of much more widely read writers than myself, the more reasons I can think of to not blog.

1. Blogging to Scratch an Itch
I'm sure that it is not entirely uncommon to want to be well-known, respected or even "famous." It gives me an "oh-so-special" feeling to know that someone might be reading my thoughts and appreciating them. But sometimes when I sit down to blog as a discipline to achieve greatness, I notice that I hate it. I've read more than a couple posts about blogging. One thing that always stuck with me was one writer's claims that an effective blog requires a write-often-about-everything mentality. As I think about how I really feel about the art and philosophy of writing, I can't help but believe that it should be something slightly more noble than writing for writing's sake.

2. Blogging to be Heard
I read a lot of blogs, a lot of which are written by some pretty well-respected scholars. Often, these people have incredible things to say. I read posts about biblical interpretation, philosophy, church leadership and congregational issues, politics, writing, pop culture and just about anything else I can find. Their voices challenge, inspire and educate. They deal with the issues in critical manners, reviewing written works, movies and even events with a delicate precision and excellence, generally speaking. When it comes time to put myself out there with my thoughts and opinions, I either feel that what I might say doesn't compare or would not be much more than an adding to the great "noise" of the blogosphere.

3. Blogging to be an Author
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with books. Probably because my mother was a librarian and didn't give us the option. Either way, I love to read and am excited by the prospect of writing. There are several that I have experienced in my very limited encounters with the land of Blog who have used their sites to accomplish such desires. I think of Tim Challies and his new book deal, for example. There are several reasons that I can't justify using a blog to accomplish my inkling towards authorship.

The first probably has something to do with my mother's imparted love of books. When I think about Twain, Hemingway, Eliot and the other classic authors I have grown to love, I can't help but feel that blogs are cheap imitations. I miss holding something. I miss crinkling the pages. I miss the new books smell. And no matter what I might learn from a blog, reading a book feels so much more productive. Reading books is always good. It seems that the addiction to the blogging world just promotes and endorses a continued dependence on technology over the real world.

The second is the availability of the blog. Anybody can get one. Writing is something that requires work. Before the blog, one had to be excellent to become a writer. Now, one must only sign up. The whole concept just seems to cheapen the whole affair. And not only are blogs incredibly easy to acquire, there is absolutely no accountability. Not only can anyone start a blog, they can say literally anything they want to.

Why would I blog?
This post is, of course, somewhat of a paradox. But despite all of these reasons not to blog, I have one great reason that I do. It allows me to sort out my thoughts. Try and try as I might, I can't seem to journal. I sympathize greatly with Donald Miller who compares it to "schizophrenia." And luckily for me, being young and undiscovered in the electronic world, this blog is virtually a journal. It is my hope, while I strive to keep my conscience clear that someone can be encouraged by these thoughts.