Sinnbefreit or why do we blog?

Talking a lot about blogs with mo&co@muc and becoming more and more confused about the fact that there is a younger, hipper, cooler, SIM playing, mySpace addicted and ya I guess somehow more up-to-date generation (definitely hiding outside of my small circle-of-trust-friends), I came to the conclusion, that my life needs some new "goal" - as we call it in neat german-style: "Sinn".
However, something was wrong about that. Being very critical about blogging and presenting my deepest inside to the rest of the world I looked through my old-fashioned diary in paper format and spent something like 2 hours reminiscing in good old (austrian) memories.. and then I suddenly realized; there is more to it, my diary was for me and myself only, I even put a cute, unbreakable (to me) security lock on it to demonstrate how secret its content was. I still didn't really get what it was, but I felt the need of expressing myself - but instead of having a very one-sided dialogue with my own (even though it can be sometimes really fascincatig when you listen actually what you have to say to yourself ;), I started writing emails to my dear friends far away at home (*buhuhuhuhu* ;') and sharing my first blog-likish comments, which I dare to share here now with the rest of the mysterious number of possible blog readers (hihi, I hope nobody besides you guys is actually really reading that ;):

since I realized....
.. that as a PhD student one almost can't refuse getting into the diary writing addiction of blogging, I conducted some serious research the last few days concentrating on the topic blogging and if this should really be one of my future and oh so carefully chosen and hard-fought for spare time activities...

ya some of you and other friends blog and it seems that compared to my private diary - that oh shame on me! is full of angry complaints about the rest of the world - the existing blogs seem to demonstrate that most of the incredible over-worked students and young people live a happy independent life, demonstrated through artistic pictures (yaaa the flickr link) and intelligent thoughts on whatever topic..
especially enthusiastic are of course we phd students that visit confereces such as CHI ....
(yep whole CHI was blogged by diligent SV students)
hmm I guess some of you may know danah boyd - a famous blogger and in public very visible phd student from berkeley:
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
(actually not a bad blog I have to admit)

confused by all these great thoughts and challenged to make my own blog at least not as dull as this one:
http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/dull/
(oh goche this guy is great - and the whole community is pissed because he makes fun of something as serious as daily blogging about the newest gadgets)

ok I admit.. I need help. I need a blog. how can I survive otherwise in this world of global chatting about our deepest emotions - especially when being seperated from the rest of our close-ones? I can not longer refuse swimming with the stream of public sharing of ourselves, our ideas and our lives in pictures..

ach simply I miss you guys and you can expect my own lia blog soon =)))
(uuuuuh I already feel the pressure *hehe*)

I guess this is the longest blog entry I am ever going to write.. *unschuldigschau*
so let's take the chance and finish it quickly up with some nice links I came up with today.

Did you know that:
we are not deriving from monkeys, but that our ancestors simply had sex with monkeys *hehe*
http://www.boston.com
So what are we: humans or animals? or both?

A hot topic, which it definitely shouldn't be: are we west or east, who differentiates and why - or should we?
I think this is a nice approach of the photographer Bärbel Möllmann dealing with this issue and letting our genreation talk. I especially like the technique and idea of using a pin-hole camera (instead of making a video reportage) that creates sensitive pictures such as:


http://what-do-you-think-about-the-west.com/index.php?d=0〈=en






uuu ya and I promised more thoughts about "sinnbefreit"..
guess I need some additional discussion with Mr. Bluebear about negative side-effects, which might occur after longer "intake", before following up on that.
We'll see tomorrow :)

ok out off the context, but still too awesome not to cite ;)
"Men will do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy. Women tend to want a more complex, creative experience."
(Will Wright, Inventor of SIMS)