What is the purpose of blogging?

July 27, 2025

According to Mike the brain, chasing brains, “Just write”:

I encourage you to start publishing your thoughts on a regular basis. Don’t overthink it. Start small. Just pick an existing platform and start writing short posts. If it helps, get drunk, choose a pseudonym, and post anonymously.

He links to Henrik Karlsson, A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox. Andrew Stephens on The Act of Creation mentions, “even sharing your work with one other person will help the creation process”.

A Hacker News comment on the chasing brains article mentions mataroa’s (personal project) philosophy, who quotes Jorge Luis Borges:

“What I’m really concerned about is reaching one person. And that person may be myself for all I know.”

The idea of reaching one person is often on my mind. I think about it when sharing shows on Seattle Noise. I’m not worried so much about the number of people who like individual posts. When promoting noise shows, there is only a loose relationship between the interactions you get on social media and the number of people who will indeed show up.

I would shorten Henrik Karlsson’s idea into, the purpose of blogging is to find interesting people. Sharing your thoughts and what you find online also helps you remember. Blogging is public writing and writing solidifies your thoughts into something concrete, to express youself. And it’s likely at least one person will find what you write relevant or interesting at some point, be it now or in the future.