Habit

I've developed a little mini-obsession with reading random blogs. I find the next blog button in the upper corner of most blogger pages kind of addicting. There are so many blogs out there- funny ones, crazy porn filled ones, pretentious ones (if the words "musing" or "discourse" or "stream of consciousness" are in the title it is likely to be written by someone who is a little too proud of his or her vocabulary) and, of course, plenty of blogs written by people with only a passing familiarity with the basic rules of grammar and spelling (its hard 2 belive that peple h8t to spell check. ROTFLMAO)

I think I may like topic blogs the best. There is, I am certain, a blog on every topic imaginable. I spent a good deal of time this morning on an Icelandic knitting site. No joke. October was "Socktober" and she had some very nice finished projects to display. My current favorite topic blog is one called "Angry Gonads" that appears to be written by two high school boys whose sole interest in blogging is to explain, in detail, why various members of their high school class "totally suck" and are "dickwads". Hee.

My real obsession though is weight loss blogs. These blogs, which tend to have punny titles like "Why the Weight" or "Weighty Thoughts", are a testament to the comparative weakness of knowledge compared to the power of habit. All of the blogs I've read (and I have read many...things are slooooowwww at work these days) are written by people who clearly understand the basic concept of fewer calories+more exercise= weight loss but, for lots of reasons, struggle to change the way they eat and the ways that they think about eating and food. It is so interesting and frustrating and at times almost heart breaking to read about people in the throes of trying to change themselves. A lot of them have really deep seated food issues and struggle daily to make better choices and to try to care for themselves well. When they are victorious it can be inspiring (though not always. These blogs are not immune from the epidemic of crappy writing that exists on the internet. When someone types: "Woo hoo!!1! I lost 100 pounds as of 2day!!! Now I can go have a donut!!1!!!!...I'm not inspired as much as annoyed) and when they fail, I feel discouraged for them, mostly because they fail in ways that feel familiar.

What is compelling about a lot of these blogs though is the story. The "how I became fat" story. These are stories of habits and desires and cravings and, often, of shame and sadness and anxiety. These are stories of frustration, of "I know I can do better, but I don't". I suspect that is a universal feeling. I suspect that most, if not all of us, have some habit or behavior that we are ambivalent or even ashamed of. Maybe that is why the story interests me. Maybe because the story is familiar. Maybe telling the story is how the habit begins to change. I don't know...but I keep reading.