Above the Fold, the free daily
technology summary from NewsScan, has
the following interesting quote
from George Orwell (from The
Writer's Demon) on what motivates people to write. Perhaps it
applies equally to bloggers:
- Sheer egoism. Desire to seem
clever, to be
talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on
grownups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to
pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this
characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers,
soldiers, successful businessmen-in short, with the whole top crust of
humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After
the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition and live
chiefly for others or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is
also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live
their own lives to the end, and writers belong to this class. Serious
writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered
than journalists, though less interested in money.
- Esthetic
enthusiasm. Perception of beauty
in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right
arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the
firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share
an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.
Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from esthetic
considerations.
- Historical
impulse. Desire to see things
as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of
posterity.
- Political
purpose -- using the word
"political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a
certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society
that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free
from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do
with politics is itself a political attitude
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