Why Blog ???

Over the last couple of days I've had several people ask me the question - "why do you blog?" One asked with the addendum: "Afterall, so many people read your blog to find out the latest things you said that THEY can pounce on and feed their dislike of you ..."

I have sat down three distinct times to compose an answer to that question ... But each time my words don't reflect the why that lies in my soul ... I can't adequately put into words why it is I Blog at all ... much less continue to Blog when my own words have been used against me so many times ...

But then last night as I was getting ready for sleep, a scene from the movie The Shawshank Redemption popped into my mind ... It is when Andy locks himself in the Office and begins to play a recording of an Opera over the Prison's loud speaker ... The narrator of the film Red speaks words that touch some of the "WHY" it is that I Blog:

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.

Truth is, I don't want to know.

Some things are better left unsaid.

I'd like to think they were singing about something

so beautiful it can't expressed in words,

and it makes your heart ache because of it.

I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther

than anybody in a grey place dares to dream.

It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage

and made these walls dissolve away,

and for the briefest of moments,

every last man in Shawshank felt free.

Blogging is my beautiful little bird that makes the grey walls dissolve and sets me free ... it is the very heart of why I write ...