This entry continues on from Part 1
The Darker Side
It was truly fascinating; being able to connect with others. Along this time, the blog culture grew. Suddenly, millions were having blogger accounts and hundred thousand blogs cropped up everyday. PetalingStreet.org, the prominent Malaysian blog aggregator at that time was filled with new entries everyday with topics ranging from Malaysian politics, to education and entertainment. It was noisy and full of life. It’s about this time the craze of link swapping and traffic hits started to become more of a priority for some bloggers. Building a good blog and becoming a well known blogger was the name of the game.
Sadly, I too got caught up in this. My entries somewhat changed as I would chose topics which would yield more comments and would attract more site visits and hits. It was interesting and challenging at first, to come up with interesting topics. But later on, the purpose became something else. Like many other bloggers of that time, I was blogging, no longer for my own self, but for an audience.
Blogging as a side income too gave rise to influx and explosion of blogs in the WWW. People were looking for ways to make money on line via their blogs and gurus were emerging, offering “valuable” tips on how to make money on blogging – a far cry from 2003 when I learnt the concept of blogging for myself. The whole notion of blogging for money made blog entries look “cheap”. They lost their novelty. While just about everyone owned a blog, the qualitiy of blogging was declining.
Lets not forget the blog politics that took place, the blog wars that were happening ever so frequently. And being as a bystander of a blog war was akin to watching a soap opera. Either an entry or a comment would spark a riot and those of us who were bystanders would blog about it or just sit behind and enjoy the drama. When I look back at those times now, not only do I find it appalling and childish, I find it just downright disgusting. But then again, never a time had there been where blogs were so integrated with people. At one point, it was almost safe to bear your soul on the internet without any reservations, but that soon changed. Bearing your soul on the internet could lead to a lot of unwanted and unanticipated trouble.
Struggling to keep the pace
While I continued to blog, in 2006, I once again decided to close my blog, primarily due to my work commitments and once again, the fact I did not have internet connection at my rented place made it harder for me to keep my writings consistent. The fear of having my privacy being invaded also crossed my mind and further fueled my intentions to close my blog down. Not to say I had written anything scandalous, but the fact that I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that someone at work could read my stuff. It was a naïve idea, but that was how I felt at that time.
I did return to the blogosphere for a short period of time in the end of 2006 – 2007, but again consistency was my public enemy. I decided to officially end my blog in mid 2007, due to work commitments and other personal factors.
I have to say at those times when I went on a permanent hiatus or when I ended my blogging activities, I felt a void in me. There were days where I really felt that I missed blogging. I missed articulating my words, I missed the pure joy of thinking up about things to write, things to share with my readers. I missed the interactions I had with other fellow bloggers and their blogs.
But the fear of having my privacy being invaded and other negative thoughts and experiences I had encountered with the blogosphere before somehow cautioned me from returning to the blog scene. But the desire to be able to continue to write again weighed more and so, in August 2007 I decided to once again start up another blog, this time, operating it with the little wisdom I had gained over the last couple of years of blogging.
Uncanny Philosophy
That blog that I started in August is what you’re reading today – Uncanny Philosophy. A quick browse on my archives and you’ll see I haven’t actually written much, and rightly as I spent almost 3 quarters of the year battling with Mum’s cancer. It was a tough time, and blogging was certainly not in my list of priorities or activities even!
I enjoy blogging these days. Even though work can sometimes be quite hectic, I still do try to make time to write something at least, even if it’s just 5 – 10 lines. I try to find time to read others and get involved in their narrations and observations of lives. The bloggers whom had a negative impact on me are still around, but they don’t bother me as much as I thought they would.
While I have listed some of the joys that I have found and still continue to find in the blogosphere, I have to admit, there are a lot of good reasons for anyone to consider taking up blogging. To me, sometimes I feel blogging is a form of art, it’s just like having a gallery or a photoblog, except that the beauty of it is in the words. It also helps that I have started to cultivate a habit of reading over the last 1-2 years. This has increased my appreciation for literature, including blogs.
Blogs can be a real wonderful tool, if you know what you want to do with it, and believe me, there are more valuable gains to be found in blogs, than just having it serve as a money-making machine. Perhaps one day I shall write about this.
