an etymology

For quite a long time I've been thinking a blog of mine would be something unnatural, a wrong way to talk to an undifferentiated community of strangers, some kind of not-so-secret diary that would expose stuff not really meant to be public.

I've been regularly following and appreciating the handful of usual suspects, almost exclusively celebrities' blogs, more professional than personal, with zillion contacts per day. And I've always been wondering why a random amount of random people should be interested in what I think or write or do, and, most of all, why they should even be aware of it.

Then I started reading a few blogs by people I really know, and meet, and spend time with, (here, here, here, here and here), almost secretly, trying not to leave any trace, in the unspoken and slightly embarrassed way everything happens with my closest acquaintances.

And I realized a couple of things:

- None of us is Beppe Grillo. No horde of unknown barbarians is ever going to invade our semi-public backyard.

- From the very first moment you open a facebook account, your best kept secrets are public domain anyway.

- A blog, for a lazy person living abroad, is a great way to communicate. What alternative do you actually have? Sending an informative mass email to your contact list once in a while (probably starting with "apologies for the mass email")? Having a periodic chat with every single one of your distant friends and relatives about what you're up to, where you're living, your plans for the future? That could easily turn into a full-time activity, and a boring one. With a blog you write something, you've done your homework, then it's up to your interested counterpart to do its own bit.

The occasion for my first post was an entry I had to write for the COP15 blog IUCN set up for the Copenhagen climate conference (here). What I wrote got cut and I decided to have it online the way I had written it in the first place. That's why it's in English - and because is good exercise anyway.

At that time I was in a kind of troubled period, and having something pointless to focus on was of great help, so I kept writing. I also wanted to organize the information I was collecting on the negotiations. And thinking to the blog as an effort that would last no more than 20 days actually helped in getting a little bit more involved in it.

Through a series of limitations to the scope, to the audience, to the commitment period, I started writing here. Surprisingly enough, it's the same process I've been through when I decided I wanted to write a song.

Now, I guess that's just the long answer to a doubt my first friend expressed here. Yes, you did influence me. Fact is, I naturally tend to get logorrheic.