Dear1 Dear2

I feel that writing a blog is somewhat like writing my life story. Indeed, I believe blogging has its roots from writing diaries. Diaries used to be written in cute little booklets like those we always see in the movies. The normal perception of diary is that it contains very personal information, inner thoughts, and perhaps selfish thoughts that one did not want to share with anyone else. Hence, finding comfort in ‘confessing’ to a diary. Like what is always portrayed in movies, murderers would write their plans and motives in a diary, an ill stricken girl would write her love of the world in her diary while keeping mum about her sickness. Finally, the diary would be discovered by someone and everything comes to truth.

But that’s only fiction. How many of us actually writes diaries with the hope that it would be discovered by someone someday? Would someone actually record down the good deeds that he had done everyday in the hope that someday someone will ‘expose’ him and realize what a good and kind person he is? Then he is actually not that kind, in fact, he is scheming. Now back to the question, how many of us actually writes diaries in the first place? I think it’s considered kinda out-dated in today’s world. But! There are still people who continued writing.

I suppose this paper diary habit slowly becomes an online diary. Online diary has the advantage of being easy to maintain, no need to buy books and more books to write in, easy to store (it’s online and virtual), and easy to access. I think most online diaries started out as private accounts. Then it evolved. The sharing nature of Internet itself transformed private diaries into something to be shared with friends, and eventually with the public. And this became blogging.

But with blogging and the notion of sharing across the Internet, these used-to-be private diaries for writing inner thoughts are no longer private. It has outgrown its intended purpose, and diary writing went back to good old tangible booklets. However, the blog is here to stay. It become a way of speaking to a wide range of audience, using a special microphone (personal blog) that interested people (surfers) can tuned in to. And the topics of blogs varied from food blogs to music blogs to corporate blogs to religious blogs to educational blog to, well, personal blogs.

I digressed quite a bit today, went on rumbling and rumbling. Today, I want to talk about what a blog means to me. To me, I see a blog as a personal history log. It’s like writing my own bibliography. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, writing styles, values, health, state of mind, as a person evolves each day. It records the things I see, sounds I hear, conclusions I draw, the fun I had and also sudden rumbles like today. It is such a gradual process that we do not see the change in ourselves, neither do we see the change in people close to us, around us. But when we haven’t seen an old friend in quite a while, we do recognise the changes in them. Same for blogging. It may seem nothing unusual now, but several months, several years down the road, when we click and decide to read some of the past entries, we will definitely see a contrast in the different sides of ‘I’. The change, and perhaps maturing of ‘I’ will be documented. All these, providing insights to the complex state of mind of the writer embedded between sentences.

I am now writing a chapter of my life, both in the real world, and in this blog. Some things I remember and forever will. Some things I want to remember or worry that I will forgot, I write it down. Some things I find interesting or feel strongly about, I express. I really look forward to the one day in the future, that I will read my blog again, and rediscover the person that I know is myself.

-Dear1