Well, if anyone is still stopping by here, it's pretty evident that I rarely blog anymore. This is, in fact, my farewell to the blogosphere. I've been spending some time in very serious reflection lately. It seems that "blogging" is a bigger thing than ever. The bigger it gets, the less I want to do it, and that needed some consideration from me. Is it just because I hate fads? After all, I refused to see Star Wars in the theater the first time it came out, JUST BECAUSE everyone was so obsessed by it. It was a (possibly futile) gesture of independence from the "crowd." Is that why I no longer want to blog, nor troll endlessly through others' blogs?
As I was thinking, I ran across this column by George Will. I'll lift a few quotes:

Franklin's extraordinary persona informed what he wrote but was not the subject of what he wrote. Paine was perhaps history's most consequential pamphleteer. There are expected to be 100 million bloggers worldwide by the middle of 2007, which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine. Both were geniuses; genius is scarce. Both had a revolutionary civic purpose, which they accomplished by amazing exertions. Most bloggers have the private purpose of expressing themselves, for their own satisfaction. There is nothing wrong with that, but nothing demanding or especially admirable, either. They do it successfully, because there is nothing singular about it, and each is the judge of his or her own success.

Time's issue includes an unenthralled essay by NBC's Brian Williams, who believes that raptures over the Web's egalitarianism arise from the same impulse that causes today's youth soccer programs to award trophies —"entire bedrooms full" — to any child who shows up: "The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we will fail to meet the next great challenge ... because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart."


I've had to ask myself: Do I want to be a part of that? I've at times, I admit, enjoyed my year-long experiment here, but at the very core of my being, something is still reacting strongly against the entire idea of blogging. At the beginning of my "experiment" I suspected that there was more than a little narcissism involved. Now, at the end, I know that there is. I know because I've experienced it, and let it blind me for a while. Now in the cold clear light, I have to 'fess up and admit it: I've been navel-gazing. And cheering others on while they navel-gazed. And, to no one's suprise, this has not made me more intelligent. Or more Christlike. Or more sensitive to the needs of others. It has, at best, been neutral, and at worst, encouraged me to fixate upon my own feelings and opinions. In short, I do not believe that, were Christ upon the earth, He would have a blog. No, He would be out, one on one, serving and loving others with no thought for Himself. I need to go and do likewise. I'm not trying to sound sententious here, but honest.

Might there be blogs of real value out there? Sure. But my time is limited, and trolling through the blogosphere for hours to sift out a few worthwhile nuggets is a poor use of my time. I don't want to miss the next great book or the next great idea or fail to meet my next great challenge because I was too busy celebrating myself. I'm not worried about depriving the world of my genius--I don't have any. I do have love, but that is not a commodity in trade in the blogosphere.

So I'm signing off. I wish the blogosphere the best. I actually hope that it moves away from navel-gazing and towards something more genuine. Until it does, though, you can find me reading a book, loving my family, and trying to serve my neighbors.