The Blogging Singularity

Writing a first blog post is, in many respects, rather like the birth of the Universe, though with significantly less initial explosion and rather more tea.

In the beginning, there is the blank page. Leaving a blog post blank has been widely regarded as a bad move.

When a physicist considers the Big Bang, they talk about a singularity—a point of infinite density where all of space, time, and presumably the laws of logic go on a prolonged coffee break.

When a blogger considers a first post, they also encounter a singularity: the blinking line at the start of a blank page. It is a point of infinite expectation, where all of your potential brilliance, hidden thoughts, and desperate desire to sound profound collapse into a single, terrifying, and stubbornly stationary vertical line.

The universe expanded outward at a rate that would make a hyper-intelligent slug look like it was standing still.

A first blog post, by comparison, often expands outward at the speed of a tectonic plate engaged in a slow-motion existential crisis.

You write a sentence. Then delete it. You write a slightly different sentence, stare at it, decide that the word "the" lacks the necessary gravitas for a grand opening, and then proceed to spend the next three hours wondering if the entire concept of a "blog" is perhaps just a cosmic glitch in the fabric of human communication.

In cosmology, we have the concept of entropy—the tendency of all things to drift toward chaos and disorder.

Writing a first post is essentially a battle against entropy in its most aggressive form. You start with a pristine, white, orderly void. By the time you are finished, you have managed to introduce a level of chaotic, fragmented thought that would make a supernova look like a neatly filed tax return. You are creating a small, noisy pocket of information in a universe that is generally trying to move toward quiet, orderly heat death.

And that, perhaps, is the point. The universe is vast, cold, and largely indifferent to whether or not you have an opinion on the structural integrity of toast. Yet, here you are, pressing keys on a board, trying to make the void sit up and take notice.

It is, at the very least, a distraction from the fact that we are all hurtling through a dark, uncaring vacuum on a wet rock, currently unsure of where we left our keys.

So, write the post. It likely won't change the expansion rate of the cosmos, but it might just be the most interesting thing to happen on this particular bit of stardust for the next five minutes.