“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker
This has been the tagline here since near the beginning, although there is some question about its provenance (Quote Origin: The Cure for Boredom Is Curiosity. There Is No Cure for Curiosity – Quote Investigator®). One of the forces contributing to my starting this experiment was Dave Winer, whose ur-blog Scripting News just celebrated its 30th birthday (The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted).
When I created an MBA-level course on knowledge management at the Kellogg School, Winer donated licenses to his blogging software tool, Radio UserLand, so that my students could experiment with blogging. The experiment was not terribly successful. I made a slew of mistakes in how I set up and ran that particular experiment. Winer has a theory that some people are what he labels Natural-born bloggers.
Perhaps.
I do think there are some perspectives or attitudes you can bring to blogging (or writing in general) that make a difference. Nicole van der Hoeven offers a perspective that particularly resonates for me when she talks about learning in public. This ties into what I’ve said in the past about the observability of knowledge work.
Curiosity is at the root of all of this. I write as part of figuring out the world and what I think about it. Sharing what I learn is about the excitement of discovering something new and interesting. It’s the toddler showing off the frog she found in the backyard. If you’re lucky you show it to someone who shows you where to find another one in the creek nearby.
But it all starts with committing to your own curiosity.