Premise: Ether is an unparalleled conductor of egocentricity.
Premise: The Web is the cheapest showcase available.
Conclusion: Vanity rules the blog.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, you know. Millions of people proclaiming and expounding upon their beliefs, telling their stories, strutting their stuff. A vast multitude of hands reaching out across virtual chasms. Look at me! Listen to what I have to say!

The anonymity of our audience encourages our vanity. We can primp and preen, fluff our feathers, crow and screech. We can be first person singular far longer than any parent, friend or English professor would ever allow.

We are millions talking all at once. In every language.

Yet in this virtual Tower of Babel, we are at once talking and listening. For every post we write, we visit at least 10-12 others to see how someone else is doing it. For every, "I like," and "I want," and "I do this, look at me!" we hear those 10-12 others with their wants and their needs, and we look at what they can do.

It can be wonderfully affirming to stumble into a blog where you feel an immediate rapport with your host. Here is someone who's on your wavelength. Whose thoughts inspire your own, or complement them, or parallel them. Here is someone who has your same, greater, or lesser talents and done something more, less, or different with them. Here is a new friend, a new mentor, or even a new love.

For every comment left on our blogs, we feel a puff of pride at having been found and noticed. And in turn we comment on another's, knowing our visit matters. And the vanity begins to fade. It's not quite so important anymore to pound our chests and give the yell.

There's a strange and wonderful metamorphosis taking place on blogs whose creators have grown with Web experience over a period of time. The "I" may be just as loudly trumpeted, but there's a new feel of inclusiveness. Old friends and new visitors feel the welcome, hear the invitation to share rather than to look and listen, see the hand outstretched to draw them in.

We, of the Web logs, are becoming a "community."

And to think, it all began in the name of vanity.