It’s been a long time. It’s been a very, very long time.
It’s been a long time since the government put the country in some form of quarantine. Five months to this date, to be exact: “the comfort of our homes” has lent itself well to a whole gamut of things, from boredom to outright claustrophobia. Long enough for some of us to turn into bakers, botanists, podcasters, vloggers, influencers, TikTokers, game streamers, what-have-you. Long enough for us to consider phrases like “challenging times” and “strangely empty streets” to be almost prosaic, and “New Normal” to be downright annoying.
It’s been a long time. It’s been a very, very long time: enough for me to wake up and start blogging again. And resurrect what started out as a writing experiment from… twenty years ago (and yes, it’s been that long).
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I’ve no clue who still “blogs” these days. A “blog” doesn’t have to exist in WordPress or Blogger or… LiveJournal. I’m also wont to think that no one just “blogs” anymore: people are now “content creators,” or “influencers.” I suppose that digital marketing has a lot to do with it: the theory that no one reads longform these days, and that things have to be “thumb-stopping” or “engagement-generating.” Writing is just too slow, and too involved. The blog post is arcane, compared to other formats like video. And yes, blogging carries a lot of political connotations these days.
The Philippine “blogging community” has long since passed. And by “passed,” I also do have to point out – soberly – that quite a few of the bloggers from back in the day have passed on: Eric, Juned, Coy, AJ, just to name a few. Just last year, Janette held the very last iBlog. But for the most part, though, most of us have just moved on: careers, marriages, children, name it.
So why, if at all, rise from the “dead,” and start blogging again?
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I think that the most important thing to have – especially during these times – is to have a point-of-view. That simple thing is being challenged by a lot of things: by authority, by an aversion to discussion, and by self-doubt. Some people sing, some people dance, some people drip with finesse and ooze charisma. I don’t: for the most part, my points-of-view are at their best when written. And that point-of-view doesn’t necessarily have to be the right one all the time, if at all: for it to exist, it has to be expressed. It has to be intuitive. It has to be felt, as much as it is thought out.
Which is why this blog is no longer an “experiment” of sorts, and why it’s called what it is. Sturm und drang, basically.
Where this renewal of sorts would take me – or us – I’m not sure. But it’s been quite a while. And it’s been a long time.
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