On Blogging.

All-right. I’ve nearly almost never blogged about the feedback I got through email, mostly because it always seemed to me a terribly egotistical thing to do, and secondly, because there are better things to blog about. Not that I do not appreciate compliments about the way I write and my ability to tell stories or the criticisms on the perception of my thoughts. But things seem to be getting out of hand lately, and I’ve gotten too worked up about it to ignore it anymore.

So far, two people have emailed me about wanting to write novellas based on my judgments and feelings, and the quirky mis-adventures I often stumble into. One of them seems to be rather sane about it, and from the impression I get, what he's writing isn’t so much about me as it is about a bunch of other cultural observations. Which is fine, as long as you’re not ripping content wholesale from my work, I’m actually extremely flattered. The other one is the reason for that ridiculous line you see below my links at the moment. I am not about to have some unknown individual guilelessly threaten to write my life story, simply because he imagines to know me inside out, from reading portions of my thought and writing something based on absolute fallacies (who knows how he’s processed the information?).

This leads on to another question I’m always asked, usually more rhetorical then anything, but I’ll address it anyway.

Is what I write true. Is any of it ever real? Well, I’ll just say this: It’s what I want to tell you. That’s the essential purpose of all art, eventually. To impress upon an audience particular emotions and thoughts. It’s how I felt for the day, and it’s what I want you to feel too. Frankly, I think Michel Moore is a fantastic documentarist, despite the fact that he’s intensely biased and bluntly put, full of bullshit. Because, at the end of the movie as the credits start to roll, you don’t leave remembering the tiny details, but you go with the impression that the war was pointless and done for all the wrong reasons. Which was essentially what he wanted to put across, and was what he very aptly managed.

One thing is for sure though. This whole sex-blog thing is spiraling out of hand, and so many people are jumping on the bandwagon I don’t feel particularly very special any longer. Not that I really was in the first place. I ripped off the idea straight from Belle DuJour. But it wasn’t because I wanted to get famous, not in that sort of glitter and glam manner anyway. I started it because genuinely love writing, and up till now had an audience limited to the people I conversed with on a daily basis, which is to say, not very many. It really killed me to think that so much effort was put in to entertain so little people. So blogging was the best solution, of course.

And it is powerful. It’s becoming a whole new limb of the media, and I am sure by 2005, this rather inspired neologism is going to be part of the English language. Just like ‘television’, ‘newspapers’, ‘advertisements’, whatever. The idea that absolutely Anyone can publish Anything in such an easily accessible, not to mention, FREE (yes, so very Singaporean to emphasize the word) media is beyond comprehension. It’s a media through which ideas and ideals are published Without an editor.

It’s raw, straight for the nest.

Pure, unsullied thought.

Democracy at it’s finest.

And what do I wish to get out of it eventually? What insane, idyllic purpose and direction do I have in mind that compels me to write so religiously everyday (and I can tell you it’s no easy feat, because I’m an absolute sucker for perfection and I hate reading crap and can’t stand reading my own work and going ‘man, that’s crap.’), spending very many free moments that could instead be exhausted leisurely, fantasizing about doing it doggy with Adrian Brody; instead, on thinking about the gossip for the day.

I suppose the best reason is for the want of people to try and understand things from my perspective, and how I want to try and understand myself. It’s bizarre, the power something like a fucking Blog can have over your life, but it can. It’s a thing, but it’s also more then that. It’s a thing with a whole fucking part of your soul in it, an inanimate, intangible ‘thing’ that contains a huge chunk of your life and a great many of your thoughts. Some of which were not even created until you actually wrote them out on the lovely familiar blue and orange interface you’ve simply gotten so addicted to.

xoxox