Wednesday, January 30, 2013

why I blog

singapore


Today for the first time in a while  I managed to get some time to sit down and read some blogs. I came across a post on “why I blog”, something I’d been meaning to write about  for a while.

Lately I’ve been struggling. I haven’t been inspired to write. Some times it’s hard. You wonder why you invest  so much time into sending your personal thoughts to the universe so that strangers can read through them (and not leave comments!) I feel happy when my stats go up, but feel abandoned when they fizzle away as soon as I’m too busy or tired to keep rowing this heavy boat.

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My mom often joked that the only reason she knew my name is because she named me.  Her little insider joke to complain about my not being very open about… well, everything really.

This may come as a surprise but, I'm  actually a very private person, in person. I don't easily tell people around me what I'm thinking or feeling. There is no particular reason for this. I was just drawn that way.

I used to hate coming back from holidays –apart from the obvious reasons- because everyone would ask “how were your holidays?” Granted, most people that asked could not have cared less. Still. It was a daunting experience for me.

Yet I blog, a contradiction that I was only recently able to make some sense out of.
In short,

1) because I like to write and blogging makes it easy for me to do so regularly. They say that practice makes perfect and I don’t always have the time to think about the book or an article. Blog posts are brief (enough) and written often enough have (I believe) helped me to get better at this. Also, I just enjoy writing.

2) because I work from home, and social media for me is the equivalent of most people’s water cooler. Now that the mongrel’s have moved on to full time schooling, freelancing gives me the flexibility to be more present in their lives, but also means that when they all bugger off to work/school, I’m left with a desk and a computer to spend the better part of my days.

I knew this stuff. The first is the reason I started the blog and the second blatantly obvious (I take this opportunity to apologize to my Facebook friends for regularly monopolizing their newsfeed). But only recently did I manage to identify what is probably the most important and satisfying reason of all.

3) because it makes me focus on the moment. Because in order to write weekly or even more often, I have to focus on what is happening here and now, what I'm thinking  about, mulling over, doubting….   it forces me to be more present, to focus on the little things of everyday life,  the ones we might forget to photograph or even think about.

These  are the big ones, but having it as a "family photo album" of sorts is definitely a plus. And since I am convinced that most of you reading it are imaginary anyways, well, that just makes it easier.