is probably innate in the human species. From 34,000-year-old
cave paintings to today’s proliferation of web logs, writing is the
purest act of creative expression: scrawling down for all the world
to see what previously lay hidden inside our minds. This is more
than just being voyeuristic; instead, I believe our need to write
proves our dependence upon social connections. Writing is a way

to reach out to others, tell our stories, and offer some common
ground where we can meet and share.

Author Roger Rosenblatt eloquently wrote about our need to write in a Time magazine essay, “I Am Writing Blindly,” published November 6, 2000. He cited Lt. Capt. Dimitri Kolesnikov, commander of the doomed Russian submarine Kursk, scribbling in the dark of his sunken vessel as he waited for oxygen to run out; former French magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, paralyzed, literally, up to his eyeballs by a stroke, dictating the words of his autobiography with an alphabetical system of blinks; and residents of the Warsaw ghetto, awaiting disease, starvation or deportation to Treblinka, writing their stories on tiny scrolls and hiding them in wall cracks.

But the need to write doesn’t always manifest itself in such dire circum-stances; just look at the sheer volume of blogs on the Web. (Last June, blog search engine Technorati indexed almost 113 million of them!) Certainly the majority of blogs were not created to document a tragedy, but rather to affirm our commonality, the daily highs and lows of one life amidst millions of others. These bloggers, writing about subjects from the silly to the sublime, regularly and voluntarily open themselves up so that others can take a peek inside, searching for shared experiences.

That’s where I find myself today, creating my first blog. It’s a scary under-taking, making the commitment to do this, knowing that regularly, I will be expected to open that figurative vein and bleed out my secrets, my passions, my desires. But inspired by the events of the past year (more about that later), I have summoned my courage to do this. (Yes, I can!) And as I do, I will adhere to a set of promises that I’ve established to keep myself true.

And so, I begin my journey. Care to join me? We can write blindly together and, maybe, help each other see with new eyes.