Um…Hi?

Realising that the last thing I wrote on here was with regards to dating apps truly haunts me inside. Maybe writing that oh so magical post zapped all the magic from within me and had me running for the hills on my hiatus for so long?

Or maybe it’s because I was afraid of judgment, I became bored of writing, or none of the above? Don’t we all feel like we’ve lost our way once in a while? Isn’t that normal? At least I’m being honest about it.

Yet, I mustn’t ponder on the negative nuances as to why I stopped clawing at my keyboard for too long. Especially now that I have rekindled my enjoyment for mouth gaping and finger typing in such harmony as I weasel-word my way through my first 2024 post (and hopefully not my last). Oh how cathartic it is to have my eyes roll back in my head and my mouth froth like mentos in a coke bottle as I whizz my way through every word right now. I’m just kidding, I just wanted to paint that mental image in your mind, my face is actually as blank as a white canvas in an art museum and I keep making a million typos in the process. Oh the perks of being a broke (80% absent) blogger.

Anyhow, in all seriousness, I have asked myself if I even want to keep this blog. I feel as though I have neglected it. It’s been in the back of my mind for so many months to return to it, to write something, anything. So I wonder why now? I’m glad I have come back though, the fact that it lingered in the back of my mind all this time as I binged watched Netflix and ate chocolate shows me that perhaps watching criminals be brought to justice and consuming copious amounts of sugar just isn’t as fulfilling as ranting on a webpage, ok well, perhaps the former is true, but certainly not the chocolate (*unwraps 5th chocolate bar).

I want to share with you some real reasons why I even started this blog. Perhaps these reasons have been in my mind all this time, my cheerleaders, my advocates to not give-up. And I want to use them as examples as to why you maybe shouldn’t give up on something in your life too, if you get that nagging feeling inside just as I did.

So here goes:

Enjoyment

I naturally liked writing growing up, as a child I would write little poems in everyone’s birthday cards in my family (whether they liked them or not is another thing).

In school I enjoyed English language and literature classes, during exams my hand would cramp as I scrawled down every last detail in my answer to a question with glee as other kids asked to ‘use the toilet’. But I was by no means a teacher’s pet, now that I think of it, the teacher probably didn’t even realise I was in the room half the time because I was so quiet. So I suppose I said what I had to say through writing instead.

I like the variety of mediums which the craft offers too, from poetry and short stories, to online magazine articles and blogs, there’s a plethora of rich and wonderful ways to exercise your literary mind. Which suits me well as I’m one of those people who gets bored easily, ask all of my previous employers, I’m sure they wouldn’t sugarcoat things haha!           

Courage

I wanted to be courageous. But not just with any random activity, with writing in particular. Like in any project or piece which requires our personal input, we are by default putting ourselves on the line for critique. There’s a vulnerability to this because after all, egos are fragile, mines definitely a fabergé egg. So I worried that, although I enjoyed writing, maybe the reader wouldn’t actually feel the same way reading it as I did writing it.

I remember going to a book opening of an author in London and I don’t know what on Earth possessed me but I manage to spit out the words regarding my hesitations for starting a blog, out of fear of the negative feedback. But he did manage to pacify my queries and qualms by simply saying that if I enjoy what I write then surely there’s another person out there who would enjoy reading it. I agreed with him, although saying to myself, ‘yeah, it’s probably my Mum.’

Yet fast forward a few years later with a lack of consistency on my part, and here I am receiving such lovely feedback from the likes of yourself and I appreciate it greatly. It’s like if you dedicated time to create an oil painting on canvas, and showed it to someone. Their feedback has a major influence on you (if you let it of course, I’m referring to the good and the bad types). For the good, I re-read them, for the bad I choose to either agree or disagree depending on what they’ve said because after all some criticism can be constructive, we all have the power to decide when that is the case or not regarding our own lives.                                 

Curiosity

I didn’t know what a blog was when I first started really, and still kind of don’t haha! I thought it was someplace people make penpals or….post photos of their trip to Hawaii. It seemed so ambiguous, but turns out the blogging world is like one big community. Like Google but with more heart. You gain a personal insight into each other’s lives, this makes topics and stories more relatable, and so more enjoyable and useful to read than if ChatGPT churned out a story or two.                                 

Being naturally drawn to the craft

Although I’m no Shakespeare, the fact that you’re sitting reading my waffle means you mustn’t think I’m that appalling either. (Please just lie to yourself if you do, for my sake, emotions are fragile flower petals after all). I’m not much of a singer, or actor, or……there are too many vocations to list to be honest. But then again, that’s fine because as great as these careers are, I’m not intrinsically drawn to pursue them. There’s a fantastic Japanese concept called ‘ikigai‘ (ee-key-guy). ‘iki’ = life, ‘gai’ = worth. And the concept refers to something which gives a person a sense of purpose. Please see the figure below:

(Courtesy of The Government of Japan)

And so, when I think of what writing is for me, I could say that it’s one of my passions. Or perhaps my mission if I’m feeling rather philosophical on occasion. Who doesn’t have a favourite childhood story, why do we think audiobooks, kindles and good old fashioned hardbacks are still popular despite copious amounts of visual content available at the click of a button?

There’s something about conjuring a mental image in your own mind from the words on a page or screen that gives this craft a personal relationship with the recipient that other artforms simply cannot do. This is not to put any form of expression down, but mainly to highlight that writing is a very intimate from of creative expression, and the recipient has that unique ability to shape the art in a way. When you read a novel, the character looks a certain way in your mind, whereas when watching it on screen, this removes that personal aspect of creation in our own minds. Isn’t this why so many times when we watch a movie after reading the book we’re left thinking ‘they weren’t who I pictured in my mind’!

So where am I going with this point? Oh yes, take some time to find your ‘ikigai’ and if you’re being effortlessly drawn in a certain direction, be it to study law, be a musician, work for a charity, don’t ignore that. It may just help you find that inner purpose many of us desperately want to discover.

Hobby

I don’t earn a living from writing a blog, although it’d be nice if I did. It’s something I do for enjoyment, and with the hope that the reader could gain some enjoyment from it too. If you’re having a bad day maybe it could give you a brief moment of enjoyment by making you laugh, or relate to a point I made and understand that there’s nothing wrong with who you are, all of us have good and bad days, they don’t define who we are.

Practice

By keeping writing a constant in my life, it helps the skill stay fresh and allows me to develop it further and get better at it. Perhaps down the line it may lead to other projects, for example, I am in the process of writing a dystopian science-fiction novel. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the first to read it! Before I become a New York’s best selling author, then of course sell the book on eBay for triple the retail price by all means.

Conclusion

So these were just a few reasons why I wanted to start my blog, and why perhaps I should continue writing more blog pieces more often than I have been doing to date. 😦 Why did I clear off for so many months if I had all these reasons to keep going?! I’ll have to make another post to explain that (I’m getting finger cramp today(codeword for lazy hehe)), but overall I think we can all attest to feeling inwardly torn in different directions, and sometimes thereby resorting to inaction as a result. This is the most vague elusive answer I’m giving right now! Some inward reflection is required to get to the crux of the answer!

Anyhow that’s enough weasel-wording for today, I’m starving, I better go cook something I’ll no doubt put myself off of after the first bite.

Oh and keep an eye out for my Valentine’s Day post on the 13th Feb (see, this isn’t my first and last one of this year after all hehe)!