Blogging. Without any particular motive, or purpose, or objective. Without a secret plan to achieve internet fame, or for that matter, tell anyone about it. Psst! It's a secret blog. You're not supposed to be here. Look the other way.
Why blog, then? I might as well continue writing in notebooks.
Yes, I write longhand in notebooks. Not as frequently as I'd like, but I do, and I feel proud when a notebook is filled. Then, later, when I want to pull out an idea, or the memory of an emotion, I realize that it's currently sitting in a drawer on the opposite side of the world. Should I have been writing on the computer?
Historically, I dislike writing on the computer, because what happens is that I have a bunch of weird little text files - dating back from, like, 1995, dude - on backup CDs and in random folders in random places on my hard drive that I de-backupped (forward-downed?) to, and while I suppose the magic of Spotlight (perhaps a future post on organizing your digital life beckons) could in some extremely improbable situations find what I was looking for, I don't know what I'm looking for, all I really want to do is flip through stuff from time to time. Plus, there's no full notebooks, no delicious, tactile sense of self-satisfaction, of 'look, this is how much I have written - I have filled this container with my words.'
Antithetically, I write postcards. Possibly with more frequency than notebook scratchings. I love writing postcards. They're short shorts, my little prose poetry, my little monsters that I unleash scrabbling and skittering at the poor, unsuspecting mailboxes of my friends, never to be see again by me. On occasion, I even receive acknowledgement of their arrival, usually a digital message that boils down to "What the hell?" Honestly, I could write an entire post on writing postcards. Several, probably. I've certainly written postcards about it, at any rate, but alas, my friend, those joys must be postponed - contain your sorrow! - for today's topic is writing in the general, blogs in the specific, and me in the, uh, more general than general. Overarching. Fundamental. Universal! Megalomaniacal? Onwards!
So, I primarily write in two ways: things to hoard for myself, and things to give to others, which swiftly fade and disappear from my recall. Blogging doesn't really fit into either of these. They're for others and for me, which feels like a natural conflict, some sort of unholy union of the two extremes my writing naturally settles into. It's something archived and easily reviewable - flip-throughable and searchable, fancy that - and public at the same time.
Why blog, then?
Well, for starters, I'd like to write more. How could a blog help me do that? It's yet another medium in which I can write. It's not necessarily a zero-sum game, that I would be writing in a notebook, or someone would soon be a surprised recipient of 500 words of sass and nonsense and a picture completely unrelated to the words, aside from a brief acknowledgement that yes, this was so, and I was not sorry about that, nor was I sorry that the location depicted was quite possibly also unrelated to not only my current location, but also past and likely future locations as well. (To postcard recipients: I may have said I was sorry, but if I did, I lied. Or maybe I didn't say. Or even didn't lie. At any rate, I have no recollection whatsoever. Live with it. Several posts, I said? Dozens, easily.) this very moment - if I were not feeding my precious words to the internet monster instead.
By the way, I bolded a shortcut through that paragraph for you in case you got lost. Let me know if that helps. Yes, it would be easier if there was no tangle to wade through, but I both tend towards and enjoy these thickets, so... bon appetit?
Back to the topic, there's also a lot of good blogs out there. I'm not claiming that I want to be one of them - I'm still undecided on that, really, leaning toward no - but a lot of them, at some point, inevitably say, 'go west, young reader, go west - and blog.' So, having gone so far west that it's east, now, maybe I should finally get around to blogging.
An aside: Actually, I've blogged before. It was a brief and ill-fated blog about a cruise, which worked pretty well. I'll tell ya, internet access on a cruise ship was pretty expensive. Being bored as hell on the ship in the evenings, (I was accompanying my parents, and the other cruisers were generally of their generation rather than mine) I spent my time writing some travel notes with a few pictures about the day, logged on, checked my email, posted it, and got off. Once the cruise ended, the blog just sort of fizzled out. I went back to filling my free time with internet access.
So why am I blogging again?
Because I tend to stifle my brain. I wrap it so tightly in petty distractions that no stray thoughts can get out, and when the stranglehold is released I panic until I have something else to consume and be yet again temporarily sated. When I go to bed at night I can only fall asleep if I've consumed consumed consumed until I am zombified to the point of not being able to stay awake any longer and finally sink into fitful dreams. I am bright - brilliant - and I am driving myself mad. Why? I couldn't tell you. But letting my thoughts run wild and free and out, even if it's out into the den of iniquity and filth called the internet, just might help. Even if it doesn't, I can guarantee that I'll feel better for having produced, rather than exclusively consumed.
And instead of filling notebooks, I'll fill months. I'd like to be able to look at my archive and see, next to each month, a number that is sometimes 30, sometimes 31. (It's always a surprise to me, frankly.) February will just not be mentioned. Is it ambitious? Yes. Is it too ambitious? We'll see.
What will I post?
I have a lot of writing homework due these days. Which I've put off. And off. And further off. It may actually not be possible to salvage a passing grade in some of my classes. But that's fine, because I never took them to pass - I took them to improve my Japanese. Screwing off in them sure as hell doesn't help my Japanese, but I might as well take advantage of them while I can. So over the next week, I'll be killing two clichés with my mighty schlong - my writing will be my homework and my homework will be my writing.
It'll be the precise opposite of fascinating for you, but that's OK, since I'm not doing this for you. This is not for critics. It is completely masturbatory, for my own pleasure, fitness and self-improvement, and god forbid you have stumbled upon this, my dark little automanipulatory cranny of the internet. On a slightly more conciliatory note, hopefully I'll fit some other stuff that you can actually read in there as well. Also, this being a dank webhole that is open to all regardless of hissy fits, it might propel me to actually try and write something fascinating instead of standard homework crap which I would be embarrassed to post, so if you can't read Japanese... maybe you should learn how.
After that?
Whatever I want, really. Ideas for games? Upon seeking employment in the industry in Japan? The text of postcards that I wrote (preserving them? blasphemy! perhaps not so likely.) Musings upon life? Short shorts?
We'll see. At any rate, it's 4:55AM in Japan on January 3rd, 2011 and I'm wide awake but feeling better and better about things every minute. The first time I wrote that sentence, it was 4:10, so though I think that feeling better and better is good, great even, sleeping during the few and precious sun hours is bad, so...
Here we go!
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