And then there was Light.

So.

I'm not quite sure as to why exactly I'm doing this, or how long it will last. For a considerable period of time now, I've harboured thoughts about keeping a web log with about equal measures of anticipation and loathing, and viewed people who did keep one with similar ambiguity.

I never quite understood these children of a strange, liberal, literary revolution. With the advent of "blogging" and its increasing popularity, anyone and everyone could keep a Blog, and in a small way, become a published writer. This has, as most things are prone to, resulted in both works of (to me) surrealistic perfection, as well as mangled...things that make your brain hurt in the course of reading.

Having heard it described as an -online diary- as it was just introduced, I have indeed seen it executed as such. Never having had the habit of keeping an actual diary, I was intrigued by this concept of an open, electronic version that anyone, by merit of having the correct URL or having stumbled upon it by sheer chance, could peruse at their pleasure. As time went, and myself having procrastinated the taking-up of such activity as I am prone, blogs of friends began to develop themselves, and a few things occurred to me.

People Blogged because it was novel, and in their writing almost expected their every word to be hung onto by friends and family and, gasp, perhaps even the mysterious Attractive Stranger Of The Opposite Gender Who Happened To Stumble Across Your Blog And Will Send You Solicitive Correspondence. Blogging was a form of seeking attention, of wanting recognition for effort put into verbalizing thought. Indeed, friends would tell friends to "Read my Blog! It's all there!". This was the difference between the keeping of a private diary and a Blog, for with a Blog, with its accessibility, you knew (or at least delusionally hoped) that people would be reading what you wrote.

With this in mind, it struck me as well how difficult then it would be to maintain a natural degree of transparency and forthcoming in such an undertaking. People will be seeing this, you know? You couldn't just shoot off your mouth, really, unless you happened to be one of those special breed of people who are able to say anything they want, anywhere. A special mention goes out here to an uncle of some friend or other, who every year at the traditional ChineseNew Year family gathering would comment rather neutrally that a female nephew's breasts had grown considerably. So, yes, one had to consider carefully their options as to what to say in their Blogs, so as best to promote a desired image of self. This naturally restricts the writing process considerably, and the resultant strange paradox of wanting attention only to find that you can't, really, behave any more spectacularly than you already do in real life, is my personal take on why Drifting is the main cause of death amongst Blogs.

Television and the cinema has us believe that daily lives can be exciting chains of events where you wake up, perform your ablutions, break fast while looking fabulous and subsequently, through a series of comic events, meet your future life-mate on the bus to work. Closer to home, people actually lead rather watered downs versions of these. Wake. Work/School. Home. Desired Activity. Sleep. Repeat. And though you really wonder what that girl in the next class at school is like in bed, you can't say that now, can you? Which leaves the would-be blogger not too much to talk about that would be of interest to even immediate friends, let along the coveted Attractive Stranger. When the excitement of the new project dies down, one finds that there are only so many localized events one can talk about in a politically correct manner that the entries become fewer and further between, and of increasingly shorter volume, until the Blog literally drifts off to eternal rest.

Yet, for the would-be-writer (coughMEcough), I do suppose Blogging is a legitimate and effective whetstone for keeping the creative mind sharp. Unabashedly, a good part of my desire to maintain such a web log stems from both the very impressive quality of some blogs I have come across, like the now-defunct Reboot>Review (whose author has since moved on to her own domain at www.wessatong.com), to the massive success such Blogging has brought to some, such as the recently-emerged HUGE Blog celebrity Wendy Cheng, at xiaxue.blogspot.com . More ground on these two Blog giants will probably be covered at a later date.

What do I really hope for, then, in doing this? Immense recognition and job offers a la XiaXue would be nice, but severely dubitable, based on the salient points that:

-I do not have breasts.

-I have not her particular brand of mass-appeal charisma.

-I do not have breasts.

Halt! I am far from sexist. And I do not mean to say she achieved her fanbase and notoriety through the sole virtue of being attractive and possessing breasts. What I -am- saying is that pretty women are far more likely to attract attention than anonymous males, and also have trans-gender appeal. Women who like her can fan-a-tize themselve. Women who don't can bitch. Men can both appreciate her substance and fan-ta-size over it. With anonymous males:

-Women don't know what you look like, detracting the publicizing factor of looks-based appeal or revulsion.

-Men don't give a shit.

Ok, so maybe a little sexist.

But yes, what do I really hope to achieve? Nothing, I suppose, but the said whetstone effect. Too long have I gone without any sort of creative output whatsoever; and for all that I profess to want to be a writer, the writer within (woot cliche) actually cringes at the thought of writing extended pieces, which smell too much like actual work.

For now, I tire. I promise more.