I know people that do neat things. I know people who know more about certain subjects than anyone else they meet in a given year knows. I know people with intelligent and insightful opinions on topics of all sorts that most people rarely care to spend much time thinking about.
You’re probably all of these things. For my part, I have circumnavigated the world, I can remove collectible beer labels intact better than anyone I’ve met, and I have a lot of opinions about social software after building and analyzing it for 5 years.
People are interesting and I think that everyone should have a goal of using their interestingness to inspire and educate other people across the world. Really, what else is there for us to do around here?
And so I say: “Blog or it didn’t happen.” One can be as amazing as one wants, and the lives of friends and family will be enriched to no end, but the web has made it stupendously clear how much of an impact posting just a little bit of one’s awesomality can make on the entire world. I am certain that a person half as interesting as another will have well more than twice as much impact in their life just by sharing what makes them special on the web. “The most important thing any person can do in this world is get back to their blog.”
A recent project of mine has been recording my family’s history: digitizing and uploading boxes of old pictures, typing up the most important stories of my recent ancestors’ lives, making maps and timelines of my parents’ lives, etc. I was largely motivated by an ever increasing amount of memories of my own life lost to the sands of time. But now I’m thrilled with the potential this opens up for my descendants, and imagining the information I record cascading through time has made me even more excited to spread information from my life online. Look out world, I’m now a blogger.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably kind of awesome. If you’re not already sharing that awesomitude with the web, take a minute to consider doing so