WHY I BLOG – WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY NEW YEAR

HY I BLOG – WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY NEW YEAR

As the year 2013 ends, I wish all the readers of my blog A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR and wish that 2014 fulfils all the hopes we have nurtured and our goals achieved. For me personally this will be the start of a new year of blogging and I hope that I shall be able to explore, share and sustain your interest in what I write. It is not a selfish motive, for it is you out there, who have given me the encouragement and an opportunity to understand myself better. Your comments and active participation in the discussions on my posts have helped me evolve as a better writer. I am ever grateful for this, for I have discovered a joy in being able to write. When you blog you choose to share what you write in a space you feel is your own but something that you would like everyone to see. In that sense it is on the public domain and I have learnt a few lessons on the way. We may choose to write on anything we want, but ultimately it should connect with the reader. I learnt a lesson during the early stages of my blogging life. The first was from my daughter, who said that I write well but she is unable to comprehend what I write. The other was from a respected senior colleague who said nearly the same thing, but added that my writings were philosophical excursions that many may not connect with. I realised that I had indeed been languishing within myself and recording them there.

We have our own take on various issues that we like to write about. One has to remember that this is a personal opinion put up on the blog and comments from the readers will always be there. These should be looked at as the different opinions that exist. There is no question of a correct opinion, as these are always subjective, but we do learn a lot and realise that there are contrarian ways of looking at things. One thing I have consciously avoided is being judgemental or making sweeping statements. This is also a forum where the reader is heard.

A ‘blog’ is a combination of ‘Web’ and ‘Log’. In short it is a log of thoughts and writing posted publicly on the World Wide Web. It is not a diary or a book, for a diary is used to record your personal thoughts and a book is a long term project laid out and developed over a period time.

For me personally it has been a space to immediately transfer my thoughts on. The faster I do it, the more truthful I am to what my thoughts are. Of course it undergoes its share of editing to ensure that the grammar and spellings are in order and a relook at it to ensure that sensibilities of my readers are not hurt. For instance my post ‘A Walk in the Rain’ was written soon after I had really experienced the exhilaration on my evening walk along the beach. My post on ‘A conversation with my beard’ came naturally as I sat in front of my computer in the night wanting to write something and as I stroked my beard as is my usual habit. I found that these posts connected more easily with my readers as they could relate it with there own experiences  whether it be the sheer joy of living or looking at events happening around them. I have consciously avoided posts on political and financial topics for I am not really interested in them after having spent a major part of my life in their midst. I guess that there is a different forum for all this and ultimately I am not a journalist.

I have also found that it is important to have a proper heading for each post on your blog, for apart from the readers in your friends circle and other related ones, there is a huge audience out there who make searches through the net on topics they are interested in. I found that my posts on art, book reviews or on literary and philosophical personalities still continue to have page views long after I had posted them. I am saying this, because I acknowledge that I have found it important to have more and more people read what I write, for this is what motivates me to continue exploring and refining my way of looking at things. I also admit that I like it when people like what I write.

So let me thank you for making me richer as a human being who is able to understand and empathise with people out there. That is the truth and it is not vanity when I say that.