To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle

Sunday, August 19, 2007
 
Nothing much been happening worth the writing.

I have never been comfortable sharing private thoughts/reflections on my blog, but it was far easier to do when I started out...these days I find myself thinking far too much. Maybe the fact that more and more people know about my blog makes me more conscious; it defeats the purpose of the blog to some extent.

I have been reading many views/opinions/articles for quite some time now on the kind of junk proliferating in the name of blogs and who would want to read such junk anyway, etc. Definitely makes one think. As to what I think—blogs are meant to be a personal space, a diary—what people write in their diaries, junk or otherwise, should not be a point open to judgement. The next question, quite logical, is why do people take to writing these diaries in the online medium? You write trash in your diary; nobody reads it but you. Why would you subject this trash to the world's eyes, if not to find a doting audience? And if you expect to find an audience, doesn't it suggest that the worth of what you write is far more than "trash" in your eyes? There's the catch. One man's trash may be another man's truffle? (I just made that up!). Coming to my point, at least the way I personally feel about it—one looks forward to discovering like-minded people, like-feeling people, people with whom one can relate to, with whom one strikes a common chord—and not an audience.

I have myself come across blogs that made me wonder about their existence (and sometimes the author's). Forget about relating, I could tear my hair at the juvenility of it all. But, who am I to complain or cry "crap"? As Voltaire said, "I do not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it".

The funny thing is: blogs are not obliged to represent facts or live up to the expectations of their readership. They can be themselves, silly, boring, titillating, or totally false. Compare them with today’s mainstream media—which carries a heavy responsibility and which the public looks up to for the “truth”—and it appears there’s not much difference anyway!