I always thought keeping a blog was above me: isn't it just an electronic diary open to anyone to gawk at? after all, if I had some really good stuff (especially opinion-wise) can't I just publish opinion articles or letters on real newspapers where intelligent people will actually read them and think deeply about them?
And, sure, until now, I have been doing exactly that. Go for the most careful and most scripted opinion writing I can come up with and submit them for publication in newspapers all around the world...with decent success, I suppose.
But when I think about it, those that written for these potential newspaper pieces (not to mention the ones that get published), are of a tiny percentage of all those thoughts (regarding the world, our society, cultures, people's behaviors, etc.) that constantly go through my mind. If I attempt to put them all on nice scripted pieces for potential publication, I don't know how much effort I would have to put in to search for their potential takers in the media...
Plus, most of these thoughts are too random, too disorganized, and too fleeting to be captured in such structured ways...sometimes, I just need to have a place to jot these thoughts down before they disappear, often in the next 10-15 minutes....
so, yeah, I guess this blog would end up sort of like a diary, the self-probing of the mind by a 21-year-old fresh out of college and anxious to join the real world for a change...to say that this blog is for the public (which it certainly is), I would rather say it is for myself: a self-examination of my views, ideologies, and even dreams when I was young, for me as I mature and age over time....
Well, the conclusion is, I guess, neither a blog nor a diary is really below me, and, sure, it perhaps will become more and more of a burden over time as I begin my career as a busy corporate tool in the near future, but if I can find even a few minutes of quiet, personal time to write down that world as I would see it, maybe, just maybe, it would be a worthy exercise for me and for the public consumption (and maybe some of the contents on this blog will be the inspiration for real published articles for written public media in the near future)...so, just bear with me on this...
As for the format, keeping with the randomness of the thoughts being written down, the posts themselves will be highly random, both in topic choice and writing style. Grammar mistakes will be common, and maybe I will even throw in a few posts in foreign languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean...) for the heck of it. Well, enjoy!
And, sure, until now, I have been doing exactly that. Go for the most careful and most scripted opinion writing I can come up with and submit them for publication in newspapers all around the world...with decent success, I suppose.
But when I think about it, those that written for these potential newspaper pieces (not to mention the ones that get published), are of a tiny percentage of all those thoughts (regarding the world, our society, cultures, people's behaviors, etc.) that constantly go through my mind. If I attempt to put them all on nice scripted pieces for potential publication, I don't know how much effort I would have to put in to search for their potential takers in the media...
Plus, most of these thoughts are too random, too disorganized, and too fleeting to be captured in such structured ways...sometimes, I just need to have a place to jot these thoughts down before they disappear, often in the next 10-15 minutes....
so, yeah, I guess this blog would end up sort of like a diary, the self-probing of the mind by a 21-year-old fresh out of college and anxious to join the real world for a change...to say that this blog is for the public (which it certainly is), I would rather say it is for myself: a self-examination of my views, ideologies, and even dreams when I was young, for me as I mature and age over time....
Well, the conclusion is, I guess, neither a blog nor a diary is really below me, and, sure, it perhaps will become more and more of a burden over time as I begin my career as a busy corporate tool in the near future, but if I can find even a few minutes of quiet, personal time to write down that world as I would see it, maybe, just maybe, it would be a worthy exercise for me and for the public consumption (and maybe some of the contents on this blog will be the inspiration for real published articles for written public media in the near future)...so, just bear with me on this...
As for the format, keeping with the randomness of the thoughts being written down, the posts themselves will be highly random, both in topic choice and writing style. Grammar mistakes will be common, and maybe I will even throw in a few posts in foreign languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean...) for the heck of it. Well, enjoy!
Hey Xiaochen, congrats on graduating! I really like this first entry and look forward to reading your thoughts in the future. Good luck with your job and living in Japan! Take care.
ReplyDeleteJim
haha, thanks dude, good luck with your things too!
ReplyDelete