Di asked if blogging is a good addiction or a bad addiction. I was also asked by DifficultSoul why can’t we be addicted to things that are good for us.

I’ve discussed addiction before. I’ve already discussed that the only emotional needs we humans have are for love and respect. Our souls long for love and respect and we have to have both or we are left wanting something in their place…hence addictions. We either seek thrills to distract our wants or else we seek something to numb our wants.

If we are in need of love and/or respect then it is a lack of self-love issue. If we have self-love then love and respect from others will follow. We can’t expect people to love and respect us if we don’t love and respect ourselves. Self-love has to be taken from us. We are born with it, but someone who has had it taken from them takes it from us. It’s not like they can use our self-love to better themselves; it’s more like, “Well, if I don’t have it, then you won’t have it either.”

To answer the first question I thought I would experiment on myself…I quit blogging for awhile. I still visited other people’s sites. I consider these people friends, so I didn’t want to make them unknowing guinea pigs in my scheme. I know the visiting and commenting on other’s sites is half the blogging experience, but I’m not hardwired to hurt anyone, so to compromise, I left small comments and didn’t visit as often.

I’ve been blogging almost everyday for a year and I do find it liberating. I love the feeling I get after I’m done writing a piece. I feel a sense of satisfying accomplishment that enlightens my soul to keep on keeping on. I feel self-love. Add the feedback I get from people and the good feeling I get from leaving positive feedback for other people and I come out feeling that maybe I’m not a half bad person after all. I’m getting love and respect. I’m feeding my soul love and respect. Is it real?

I found with my time off from blogging that I had some extra time on my hands. I visited my love ones more. I did some things around the house that needed doing. I took care of some things that I have put off for ages. I found that I had neglected more people and things than I realized. I found that even though blogging has enhanced my life in some respects, it has diverted my attention from what is actually around me. What I found was that blogging is like anything else…we can abuse it. We may be enhancing our self-love through blogging but if we do it at the cost of what is really around us crumbling, then we are affecting our self-love in real life and forcing ourselves to find all of our love and respect in the tiny screen before us. Is that an addiction?...yes. Is that a good addiction or a bad addiction?

There are no good addictions. We can’t have good addictions simply because an addiction is a poor replacement for love and/or respect.

I will continue to blog because it enhances my self-love. I will use it to connect with people that I normally would find impossible to connect with otherwise. I will use it to further explore my feelings toward and about certain issues, but I will not abuse it to the point that my real life should suffer the consequences.

Blogging is like anything else…if done in moderation, it can enhance your life.