My life — as, perhaps your life — is complicated.  There are a lot of competing concerns, from personal issues, to work issues, to family issues and beyond.  And that’s not even counting the blogging.  One really interesting thing is that as I am ramping up towards a new DJI (one day soon, I hope), I discovered I needed a place to leave thoughts, reminders, and notes for myself and only myself, that would have no value to anyone *except* myself.

So, I started one, in private, behind a password-minded gate, and installed the latest version of WordPress on a shared plan that I have with a URL that I already owned, and just started doing it.  Why WordPress?  Only because I’m comfortable with it and the lead in time would be minimal.

And what have I been writing about you might ask?  Things like:

• my thoughts about random personal things at any moment
• a daily (well, perhaps not daily) record of things — unique, interesting or important — that happened to me in and around the day that it happened
• lists of things I want to accomplish
• lists of online resources that I want to keep track of
• video clips of things that have some particular meaning to me and what I’m doing
• personal notes about things that I don’t want to forget as I’m studying
• medical news that I need to remember: annotized, categorized, searchable, linkable, and available.

Now I realize that there are a *lot* of different services that allow you to do this kind of thing.  Backpack is pretty good, in particular, as it has a built in calendar and an easy means to upload files (neither of which are built in to WordPress).

However, I find as I continue to leave stray mind-droppings in this “Daily Record”, I had a funny eiphany the other day.  It really was … well, a diary.

Which is funny, in a way, as bloggers have done their best to evolve *away* from the blog as a navel-gazing diary into a more established, validated, and meaningful medium for disseminating information, opinion and analysis.

But I have to confess:  blogging as a diary really works.

I am not writing lovely thought out posts (perhaps I never do, I leave that to you), and that’s not really its purpose.  Its a dumping ground.  An organizing ground.  A memory aide. All searchable, update-able, and available anywhere there’s internet access.

All in a place that *I* own and that *I* pay for (and that ultimately *I* am responsible for).

Its funny.  I’ve been blogging for a while, and yet, blogging in *this* personal way is like reconnecting what blogging is about.  And while I initially shied away from the label, I am fine with it now.

I have a blog.  Its a diary.  But its for me and it works.

And if you’re a blogger, maybe this kind of blogging will work for you too.  Even if you don’t know — try it out.  Start a private blog somewhere to keep track of Stuff.  Stuff in your life.  Notes about stuff you want to do.  Stuff you’ve not yet accomplished.

In an odd way, its like getting back to where blogging started and in some ways, to some people, a very important part of what its all about.