Markers and Milestones

This is my first blog post for 2019 and I'm happy to be continuing my momentum and commitment to write weekly. Blogging is not as popular an activity as it used to be when I first started this blog around 16 years ago(!). I suppose this would be a good topic to kick-off the year: Why blog at all?

Obviously I've blogged about this topic before. But it's worth a revisit, especially when it is plainly obvious that no one (besides yours truly) reads this blog at all! So why bother?

Even then, when I first started blogging, I did not bother to promote this blog. I've on many occasions likened this blog to an 'exercise book'--a place for me to scribble and 'take my fingers for a walk'. It is where I can practice spontaneous writing, like how some people doodle on the margins of books or on the back of napkins.

I've also likened blogging to 'singing in the bathroom'. People who do so often sing with as much gusto as someone who performs in a live arena of adoring fans. Blogging is not exactly like writing formally for a journal or newspaper but it is close. You would want to 'perform' as if you are doing so.

During the height of my blogging fever when I was living in Indonesia, I blogged everyday without fail for almost 2 years. I wanted the pressure of datelines--that dreaded feeling of panic when faced with a blank screen with not a single idea of what to write. I think that was very good practice. It helped me to hone my writing skills a great deal.

That, I think, was the practical reason as to why I blogged. I just wanted to improve my writing. A performance artist can only improve when he performs publicly to an audience. And the blogging audience is a forgiving one. It is as close as one could get to being a regular newspaper columnist.

There are other more psychological or even spiritual reasons for blogging. I've blogged about this before too: I called it 'writhink'. The best why to work out one's thoughts is through writing. When I write, I am actually analyzing how I feel towards certain subjects. Through the act of writing, I understand myself better. I know where I stand on certain issues.

When thoughts are written out, they manifest themselves into the world, as something almost physical. They can potentially affect changes in the real world: thheir potency is unleashed.

This blog is also a repository of all my ideas and opinions in its raw and uncurated form. In fact, 15 years ago, someone told me that I have enough material in my blog for a book. If I cease to exist in this world, this blog would still float around in cyberspace, like some cosmic debris in interstellar space.

Looking back, I'm glad that this blog exists. If I had typed or wrote these words elsewhere on pieces of paper, notebooks or documents, I would not have had the discipline to preserve them in such a pristine order and form as this blogged has to all the articles that I've posted. It is a treasure trove that I can continue to mine for years to come. If you want my opinion on a certain topic, I'm quite sure I can send you a link to a related article here in this blog.

And most important of all, blogging makes me happy. Everytime I posted something to my blog, I clocked in another milestone. It's another personal marker in cyberspace, another moment of reflection on life's journey. And may there be many more of such milestones and markers here this year.