Since joining Facebook I haven’t posted much on Endlessly Rocking, and there’s definitely a connection. Carrie said that it’s a common phenomenon, for blogging to drop off when people increase their social networking through some other application.

It’s interesting, the different experiences I get from this blog and from Facebook. I like being able to post videos and photos and links here, and to muse on various topics, all without really worrying whether anyone is reading. On Facebook, I connect on a daily basis with long-lost friends and people I see every day, and although the substance of the contacts is pretty light, it still feels meaningful. This is Facebook 101, I suppose — welcome to the 21st century, Tony.

And yet I feel (as least at this moment) like I’m faced with a choice of whether or not to continue writing on Endlessly Rocking. If it weren’t for the freedom that WordPress offers to design my blogging world, and to have this whole forum to myself, it seems like the choice between the audience of my friends that Facebook offers and the anonymous, mostly silent audience of this blog would not be difficult.

Something else got me thinking. I participated in the “25 Things About Me” phenomenon, which was really fun; unexpectedly, after I posted the note, several of my friends left really nice comments for me, saying that they thought my note was moving, beautiful and such. A wonderful old friend even wrote a long, personal email in response to my list.

In his note, my friend reminded me of the wild times in the mid-1990’s when we were part of this emo-punk zine writing / pen pal scene, a gang of freaky kids spread out across the country who knew each other better than we knew the people in our own towns. It really was an amazing time, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But there was one problem: I was kind of a blowhard then, and wrote a lot of stuff that I now find embarrassing. It made me think — in the year and a half since I started this blog, during which time I’ve written some big pieces about politics, God, philosophy, etc., did I revert to the kid who couldn’t censor himself? Who was happiest when he was talking, talking talking, with no consideration for the utility of what he was saying — or even the harm? For one terrifying moment, I couldn’t be sure.

I’m a little less freaked out now — I recognize that I have grown since those days, and that this blog is written in an entirely different spirit than I used to write with. But even so, I’m a’thinkin. Perhaps what I need is a community — and at least from what I can tell so far, Facebook does offer some semblance of community — rather than a soapbox. And if I wrote less here, it would leave more time for writing fiction.

But if did I stop writing here, I would definitely miss it. I appreciate that this blog can take the form I need it to on any given day. Sometimes, after putting Imogen to bed I just want to post cute pictures of her, and talk about her unselfconsciously in this, my own little scrapbook. That’s really precious, I think, and it would be shame to let it go. So, I’m inclined to stick around, or at least visit on occasion.

Possibly I’m just being swept up in the changes that are happening to everyone who participates in our information culture. Today I’m on Facebook, updating my status once or twice a day; tomorrow, will I be on Twitter? Am I simply finding a new rhythm for the way that I share?

Here’s a development that may help determine things: Carrie and I are shopping for a new wireless service, and I’m fairly certain (read: rabidly determined) that I’m going to get a touch screen phone with an HTML browser. I’m excited to see how extreme mobility, with information radiating off of me like gamma rays, might impact the way I connect with the world. Facebook will be a part of it, no doubt, and also perhaps this blog?