Why would someone as unqualified and uninformed as myself have the sheer gall to present his thoughts and opinions in a blog?

Perhaps I am just a narcissist, indulging myself with my own mental reflection. After all, very few people read what I write here.

For me, though, that is part of the point. The only people who tend to read this blog are people who already know me in some way. I don’t have to worry about what the larger world thinks of me: I am safe in my obscurity. I enjoy writing, and would like to get better at it, but it does make a huge difference – and largely a positive one – to know that at least one other person will read what you write. If you have to leave the house – even if you only need to get milk – you have a reason to change out of your dressing gown. But you would dress differently again if massed ranks of paparazzi were camped outside.

So a tiny readership, who already know to expect the kind of nonsense I serve up, is just right for me.

Also, I suppose I feel a kind of duty to the possibility that blogging offers: we live in a bright new dawn when almost anyone can make their feelings known. Not to do so, even in the microscopic way that I do, feels a bit like not voting when previous generations sacrificed so much to have the chance.

Perhaps I overstate it: which brings me to the last reason I can think of. This way, I will have a record of what I thought. So that I can look back in a year, or two, and think how wrong I was. Which is worth being reminded of regularly, if only to reduce the chance of becoming a narcissist.

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