I think that the author of the post was trying to address exactly this question of purpose. I'm basically going to reiterate what he said, but here's my own take on it:

You can get over your hurdle in two ways:

- You can trust that your writing will be exciting for the future you. When I started keeping a journal, it really did seem so forced. But sure enough, when I read it a year later, I was captivated by the forgotten person and experiences on the page.

- You can trust that the activity of writing will help the present you to collect and develop his thoughts. Usually, I start a journal entry by writing about some dream, memory, or recent event. In thinking about my reaction to the event, I wind up making a general observation about one of my own beliefs or characteristics. At that point, I forget the event and just go on a tangent about that general topic. An example would be "Steve was wearing a hat today. I don't like it when people wear hats. I think that hats are [insert thesis here]."

I wind up thinking deliberately about something that I've never paid much attention to before, and the act of constructing a written linear narrative forces me to be thorough and precise in a way that my mental narrative isn't. If the topic is some concept that's unrelated to me, then I'd say this helps me to form actual opinions about the world, and to be a more confident in my decision making. I'd also agree with what the post said about "preoccupations". And if the topic is myself, then I find that it somehow helps my self-esteem to look at myself from a distance. Everybody looks more graceful from the outside.

In trying to collect my thoughts on the original topic, I usually find myself making more claims about other interesting topics - and so I sometimes run out of time to write before I run out of things to write about. An example of this would be the claim that I just made - "everybody looks more graceful ...".

+100 for the personal journal idea, for the same reasons. I started keeping one just a couple years ago, and even with that short timespan I found it's fascinicating to look back and remember all the interesting things that I've experienced.

> I won't be writing about anything particularly exciting for anyone. If writing about another subject I won't be writing anything better than what you can already find on any given book written by an expert.

How do you know that? Does it matter? If you don't want to write for the public, write for yourself. Put what you write in a folder and let it sit for a (week|month|however-long). Keep writing, keep putting stuff in the folder. Every once in awhile, read what you wrote. Eventually you might have something you'll want to publish. If not, it doesn't matter. You've written because it's fun to write, because you like writing. The more you write, the better a writer you can become.

Agreed. Don't write because of the audience. Write because it helps you process your thoughts and feelings.

I haven't even started writing publicly yet, for similar reasons, but my hope is that what'll happen is that I'll keep on getting better from the practice, learn more about things I've written about in the past, and be able to turn out increasingly useful stuff. I don't expect any of the info to be truly new, but if something took me a day to dig out of a few references scattered across the web, and I can preserve it all in one place, it'll help the next person trying to do the same thing.

The internet is a big place. Maybe only 10 people in the world share your views. Why cheat them?

Invite your readers to contact you and tell you what they liked.

Sadly, even if you have a comment section at the bottom, nobody will bothers to give their opinion.

A public comment is different from a private email.

Also? This thread is happening.