Mblog

just testing

It’s been three or four years since I first thought about starting a weblog. At the time, I made a few false starts, and then abandoned the project, but the idea has lingered. Now I’m picking it up and starting again.

Then and now, one of my obstacles has been lack of a clear focus and purpose for the blog. Maybe I would post just links to news stories which I thought were of special interest or importance. Maybe pithy quotes about life. Maybe commentary about whatever I was reading, or thinking about. Maybe stories or reflections about events in my life. And the audience? Equally unknown. Friends? Strangers? Myself? Nobody?

All of these questions, hard to answer in advance. But to start, somehow I must choose a title, I must choose a blogging platform, I must choose whether to put it on my personal website or another one, and whether to post with my real name or a pseudonym. And if any of my posts are personal stories, somehow I must also choose what details to include, and what to mask or omit, for the sake of others’ privacy as well as my own.

Enough of these questions. I’ve often been inspired by a quote from Miles Davis, and often thought about it in connection with this ongoing blog idea. It’s still apt, and maybe it will provide enough of a theme to justify this blog’s existence until its identity and purpose becomes more clearly established:

“I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later.”