Self-important or user-friendly?

I've long been conflicted about blogs. On the one hand, they're a great way to vent, process, and self-reflect. They also present a fantastic forum to allow your friends and family (as well as the occasional stranger/stalker) to keep up with your life at their own pace and convenience. After all, it sure beats mass e-mails that people either have to feel obligated to read or feel guilty deleting, right?

On the other hand, however, don't they seem just a bit self-important? Really, why would I think that anybody would be interested in what I put up on a blog? Isn't it REALLY just so that people can feel important and harbor illusions about untold thousands fawning over their brilliance? And, for better or worse, I'm *just* self-aware enough to know that I have a strong natural bent to self-absorption anyway.

Anyway, probably both of the above factor into my decision to toss my proverbial hat into the blogging world, although the bigger reasons belong to a completely different realm. The good news that matters to you, of course, is that unlike an actual flogging, you possess the power to determine how much of this you endure. As a hospital administrator once quipped, "Aren't you the lucky one!"