Bloggers are narcissistic. Welcome to my blog.

A few months ago a friend of mine emailed to ask me why he should blog. But he wasn't in the process of determining whether he wanted to blog. He had already decided that he did, in fact, desire to post his musings on the web. Before he could start, however, a well-meaning friend (probably someone who taught a semester of Writing 101 at a community college) told him that his blog needed a purpose and that the first step of blogging is to state your reasons for doing it.

I responded to my buddy that he should blog because he is narcissistic. Truth be told, he does have a little bit of an ego. But he is funny, athletic, smart and successful, so he probably deserves the big head -- and a place where he can post his smart and funny thoughts for all to read. Honestly, that's not why I called him narcissistic -- I just think anyone that writes down his random thoughts expecting that others will want to read them must think pretty highly of himself, deservedly or not.

And, yes, I do think this rule applies to more than just blogs. Anyone who writes a book or contributes to a periodical, pens a letter to the editor or even responds to an online forum is making one big assumption -- that people care. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying they don't care. They might. But the point is, the writer generally has to assume people will care before he writes for public consumption.

I used to be a member of an online discussion forum, the subject of which is far too nerdy for me to disclose in my first post, where I was at one time a daily contributor. One day I received a private message from another member of the forum that was very long, but could fit nicely in the category "hate mail." The guy told me that he found my comments on the site extremely immature and tiresome, that I was so annoying that it made him less motivated to contribute to our nerdy discussions, and closed his wordy and arrogant note with something like, "thought you would want to know." I quickly responded that I, in fact, didn't care, that my comments on the site weren't for his benefit, that I would therefore continue to engage in the discussions as I pleased and that he could print off his presumptive letter and stick it up his nerdy you-know-what. Oh, and I posted his letter on the forum for everyone to read.

What nerve! To think that I would really care what some jerk I had never even met thought about me. Truth be told, I did care (kind of), but I knew he had no way of knowing that, so the driving force behind his message was still arrogance as far as I was concerned. And the worst kind of arrogance at that: the mean kind.

It wasn't until later that I realized what the guy saw in me (or read in my comments) that he didn't like -- and what I, in turn, found in him and despised. It was arrogance. He tired of my many posts in the forum because they carried an air of "I'm responding to this thread because I'm sure everyone wants to know how I feel about it" and were written by the kinds of guy who laughs at his own jokes. And I despised his rudeness and the presumptive "thought you would want to know" attitude that accompanied it all the way to my inbox.

Though Jesus' reference to the plank and the speck of sawdust doesn't really apply here (we both had planks in our eyes and he wasn't a brother), it definitely reveals some truth that would have been helpful in dealing with my detractor at the time. For one, it seems we as humans are quick to see sins in others if we struggle with the same sin. The arrogant part of me was very quick to recognize his arrogance and vice versa. In Jesus's example, the speck of sawdust and the plank are made out of the same thing...there is just a difference in size.

It seems natural and appropriate to start a blog called "Confessions" with a confession of arrogance and narcissism. It is, after all, a blog. I expect people to care, and that makes me a little self-conceited no matter how you cut it. If I didn't expect people to read this, it would be a journal or diary and not a blog. As a definition, bloggers are narcissistic.

On that note, welcome to my blog.