Five Years Before the Mast, err, Keyboard

October 1 marks my blogiversary, or blogbirthday or whatever. For five years now, on most Sundays through Thursday nights I’ve written a short essay. On some of those I’ve failed to get anything decent on (virtual) paper and have failed to post … life also of course intervenes occasionally to make that impossible. In that summer five years ago, a co-worker mentioned he’d begun reading blogs. I’d heard of them, but didn’t really look into it. So … I looked into it. Through August and September I “delurked” and spent and more and more time joining discussions, mostly on Joe Carter’s Evangelical Outpost. Then one Friday evening in September I signed up with blogspot, and chose a name for the blog, Pseudo-Polymath. That, in itself, to be honest was something of a variant/riff on the most popular blog of the day, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, who it must be said remains one of the highest trafficked blogs (although I must admit I haven’t myself stopped by in some time now). Pseudo, meaning fake, and Polymath, a person with great expertise in a wide variety of fields, which I think describes much of us on the net for via google and wikipedia we are suddenly fake experts at so many things. A few years later, I moved from blogger/blogspot to host my own blog using WordPress where it resides now. A little over a year ago, I was invited to join a quite prestigious (in the Christian blogging community) at Stones Cry Out and so far, I haven’t been uninvited.

The very first post, not surprisingly for a programmer, was “hello world.” Which worked … I subsequently deleted. Part of the froth back then of course was the Kerry/Bush election race. I even watched some debates and “live-blogged” them. Blogging then and now in part has been part of my personal spiritual journey, a half-year prior to starting blogging I “converted” and came to the somewhat abrupt conclusion that I was not just taking my kids to church on Sunday’s for their spiritual education, but because I was now a confessing Christian. That began a flurry of book buying, reading, and study … which eventually propelled me out of that church (and for no fault of it’s own) to an Eastern Orthodox parish where I now attend and find my home.

Anyhow, so for me the blogging experience is fruitful. It spurs me to read, to study, to put thoughts into words, it’s taught me to write much much better (if you think my writing is bad now. Heh. You should have seen it back then!) It’s pushed me to read to explore things and topics I wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Who knows where it will lead me (and therefore hopefully us) in the future.

To finish, I’d like to thank wholeheartedly the small cadre of devoted commenters, and as well all who have ever commented or read. Thank your for your thoughts, your time, and your continued patience with me and with each other and for what has been almost exclusively irenic polite thoughtful discussion.

Filed under: Admin • Mark O.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!