Milestones of Memories

Every blog post is another milestone in my life. That's how I see it. The time you have on this earth is finite. There's a fixed amount of time in your pocket and you choose how you want to spend this currency called Time.

What then is considered a good use of one's time? It's the same consideration that comes into play when you decide what you want to do with your money. You can spend it on something that you enjoy or you can invest it. 

Usually to try to kill two birds with one stone: enjoy and invest. Writing in this blog is one of those activities that I enjoy but what do I get out of it? It is like physical exercise. If you want to improve your writing, you simply have to write. The more you write, the better your writing becomes. And that's my motivation for maintaining this blog besides having it as almost like an online journal of my thoughts throughout the years. 

I've been blogging since 2003, when the war in Iraq broke out. At that time, there were many so-called 'warblogs'. Facebook, Youtube and smartphones were not in the picture yet. That seemed like a different kind of world now. I was living in a hotel in Jakarta then and I remember having to dial-up through the hotel phone to PT Telkom's ISP service to get a connection.

This blog contains all my thoughts since then and I've covered a wide range of topics. I can see how my thinking has evolved over the years and I certainly know myself a lot better now having thrashed out these thoughts on the pages of this humble blog. 

No one reads this blog of course and I'm happy about it. You see, when you practice writing, you need some kind of stage for rehearsal. A rehearsal stage is both private and public. Anyone can walk in and watch the performance, but it is not the actual performance that you would want your real audience to see. Anyone watching a rehearsal too understands that there will be imperfections and the performance is just a work-in-progress.

That's the spirit of this blog and that's how I choose to maintain it. The good thing about writing in a blog is that, it is forever etched in the akasha of the internet. For the first two years, I blogged almost daily. Nowadays, I try to post something once a week. These regular blog posts gives me a sense of accomplishment every week--like a columnist with a dateline to meet.

When I run out of things to write about, I simply write...about writing. And that's what this post is all about. It's about time, blogging, milestones and writing. It's a blog about nothing and yet it is everything to me. In the end, all you have are memories. And they are captured here for posterity. And it gives me so much pleasure to be able to write this final sentence that ends the post for this week!