Today, I publish my 100th blog post.
Why do I do it? Well, for one thing it gives me great satisfaction. Knowledge is not to be kept or hoarded. Moreover, I enjoy helping my patients solve their problems. I know that some people for one reason or another can't make it into therapy. I would hope both to encourage people and to explain some concepts regarding psychology along the way. I also enjoy the feeling of being connected to people.
Commercial publishing is not really an option. I've gone that route (mostly dry academic books on depression), and those types of books don't get distributed out to people very well. There might be some money to be made on popular books. But the money is not important. What really brings me satisfaction is knowing that people around the world can freely access this information.
Ideas don't belong to any one person. I don't know where they come from. Sometimes I think that I have a new idea, but I suspect that what really happens most of the time is that my mind takes information which I have encountered and puts a slightly different twist on it. They are my ideas, and yet they are not. And if I don't share them, someone else will. So why not share them for free? And it seems like the more I share my ideas, the more it stimulates me to think.
Each of us has something to contribute. If we give it away, the world is a better place for it. Now I don't blame people for making money off of blogs or books. I made a few dollars off of my academic books. But there is also a time to give things away.
I like the idea of Teilhard de Chardin about the noosphere. He was a Catholic theologian banned from publishing by the Vatican. (It always makes something more tantalizing somehow when it has been banned). He talked about the noosphere [(Greek word for mind=nous)+sphere] (sorry, I don't know how to pronounce it). Of all the spheres surrounding the Earth (atmosphere, biosphere), he theorized that this one was composed of thoughts. Here is a link, summarized in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere . I like the idea of adding my own thoughts to the noosphere.
So, I hope there is something useful here for you. I would encourage you to read a little about Teilhard de Chardin, a very interesting thinker. And hopefully, you can add your own contribution to the noosphere in one way or another, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment