Why do I do it?

A couple of times, some people have asked why I blog. It seems like a rather obvious question, right? Because the answer would probably lie somewhere between it’s a hobby, I enjoy doing it, or writing makes me happy etc. A bold friend once asked me if I would consider ‘monetizing my blog’ – he even offered to help me do it as he happened to be a web techie and one of his strengths was knowing just about the right thing to publish and turn your content development hobby into a cash cow. We know how the drill goes. That aside…

Yesterday evening, as I reflected on the things I do, why I do them and why I do them the way I do them, it took me back to the basics of why my blog was birthed in 2012 – prior to which I had toyed with the idea since 2010. At the time I kept writing and deleting pieces. At one point (2011) I even gathered the courage to send out an article for publication by a major newspaper outlet which never saw the light of day – they didn’t even send a regret to affirm that the article was received but was not good enough. Three years later and interestingly, this same article made it to that exact same newspaper, garnering double pages in publish, difference being this time round the story, my story, was documented by an experienced journalist and it had more buzzers and life to it. Stardom hit home for a second there! It should be noted that at the time I had already blogged about it, but it didn’t hit waves as the version that would be released on the paper years later. Why am I sharing this? It is to say that:

An idea or story whose time has come will be told by yourself or somebody else, so don’t give up on it.

Reading through my first blogpost in 2012 where I spoke about my journey into blogging, I realize that I said many positive things and was set for an upward trajectory in as far as stepwise or piecemeal progress is concerned. I think I wrote another post on stepwise endeavours round about that time, will try trace it and drop the hyperlink in case anyone’s interested. Over a decade later, ask me again why I blog. The answer might slightly differ from the original drive those years back – but the fundamentals remain the same. In the present, one of the reasons I write – albeit long (see who changed after accusing her then boss of being a verbose writer…uh!). I try to be concise – considering the era we live in and fact that people just do not have the energy for long narratives. This reminds me of an incident last year where a communication expert tried to convince a production team I was working with to shorten a 15-minute documentary we’d worked hard on for months into an under 4 minutes runtime as otherwise no one would watch it. I put my feet down and said the docu was intended for a specific audience – it was not everyone’s cup of tea hence we would not go back to the storyboard and craft something shorter. If you must know, shortening would have essentially killed some characters who were important to the storyline – I was not about to let that happen. In today’s world, quality books get lesser readership as attention is now re-directed to social media content and the likes. So yes, general consumers have every right to demand shortness – I also often advise on succinctness especially for social media related content, even though I struggle with it. Sorry, it’s the times we live in, don’t curse humanity for this evolution. It is what it is!

Okay, let me finally answer the question on why I blog (today) and stop there before attention switches.

I do it because it is my happy place – believe it or not – writing has been a source of therapy for me. Yes, I also do (self) therapy, no one’s perfect!

Increasingly I find writing, just as I do instrument playing to be my source of psychological wellness. Just like strumming – which I will hopefully write about someday – writing about my opportunities and challenges gives me the space to be myself and share opinions in a way I feel comfortable doing it. It also allows me to see the world from a different perspective – one where I am the ‘student of life’ eagerly waiting to learn and share my lessons with others occasionally.

Until the next post, happy times figuring out why you do what you do!