Tuesday 17 February 2009

Its certainly been a while. I havent blogged for a long while. Almost ten months, by my reckoning.

Quite a while. In that time, i finished my first year in medical school, turned eighteen (yey!), got five different sorts of perfume as gifts (i think people are trying to send me a message), helped organize an amazing conference, and found my first girlfriend.

Yes, its been quite a ten months.

I'm kidding about the girlfriend. I'm still hopelessly single.

Anyway, here i am, four thirty in the morning, not even remotely sleepy. My biological clock has been completely up-ended, i havent slept earlier than five in weeks. Havent woken up in time for lunch in weeks either.

I have an actual reason to be up this time though. Just in case you're a completely illiterate barbarian, the greatest football team on earth is still in the running to win an unprecedented five trophies in one season (i know its not gonna happen, but you wouldnt keep a kid from his dreams, would ya?), and one of the many benefits of this is that they're playing maybe twice as many matches as a normal premier league club would. Which is great for me, i love watching them play. And in my excitement, i though their game against Fulham (if they win, they go five points ahead in the league!) was tonight.

Turns out its tomorrow night.

Oh well.

So i figured, since i've got nothing to do, there's nothing to watch on tv, and i've got maybe another hour or so before my dad wakes up and kicks my arse, i might as well attempt to revitalise this absolutely dead blog.

And what better way to revive a blog than to explain the reason it died in the first place!

Blogs die all the time. People get bored, run out of things to write, find new blogs, die, or get lives all the time.
Why'd my blog die?
A mixture of all these reasons, to a certain extent. Laziness, of course, played a part. I got busy, studying real hard for med school. Oh, maybe thats not really one of the reasons, but it sounded cool. A bit of writers block, perhaps, something i'm actually experiencing this very moment.

But the real reason i stopped was a bit more complex. I forgot why i started a blog in the first place.

I realised no one was reading (well, almost no one). No one really cared about what i thought. In the big scheme of things, nothing i wrote here ever really mattered. Insecurity mingled with cynism, resulting in me wondering, if this isnt really gonna affect anyone, why write anything at all?

It was all rather depressing. People like feeling important and in control, like they matter and they have power. I'm no different. Realising that i wasnt important, had no control, didnt matter and definitly had no power really sucked.

So i fell into that hole, and this dear blog payed the price. It was like growing up, you start out with such enthusiasm, so many great ideas and plans and dreams and hopes, and then slowly, as the years wear on, your spark dies out, and you slowly lose your drive. I had so many great ideas, so many things to write about, so many opinions, but all of them ended with that dark little voice saying 'No one cares about you. Forget it. Dont waste your time.'

A few days ago, something happened that evoked those feelings of cynism and pessimism. I was basically shot down. It made me feel small and worthless, insufficient, and again, i felt like curling up in my hole and never coming out. Becoming a social hermit, keeping my thoughts to myself, giving and getting nothing from anyone. Why contribute what you have, when what you have is worthless, and will be rejected anyway?

Then it hit me. Why not?

So what if no one cares. So what if you dont matter. So what if you cant change the world? It shouldnt stop you from doing what you want. If you feel like giving your opinion, give it. Regain some of that enthusiasm we all started out with, and keep going. Keep volunteering, putting yourself out there, take a risk, and get shot down, and then get back up!

Every blog i post, i'm putting myself out there, a target to rejection and ridicule. And its frightening. These writings arent just some words tossed together loosely. As cheesy as it sounds, these blogs are intimate expressions of my deepest being. I think any other writer would be able to identify with it, what you write means something to you, if no one else.

And of course, in danger of sounding sad and pathetic, i'll admit it'd still sting if no one cares about what i write here. Things i wouldnt normally talk about come out here, glimspes of what i hope for and want and think, and i'd like to think that somewhere out there, some one read something i posted, and was affected some how.

But even if no one cared, and no one read this, it wouldnt really matter that much. Because i realised something, while i read the posts i made last year, and the year before that. I dont just write so that other people will read and maybe learn, but i also write for myself. When i write i take a snapshot of my mind, at that very moment in time, and its nice to look back a year or two, to see how far i've come, how much has changed, and how much hasnt.

Anyway, this is in no way a promise for posts in the future. I might fall into my funk again, and only come out of it in thirty years, after the internet has been rendered obsolete by a uni-net that connects us all directly through our minds! Or i might post something new tomorrow. It doesnt really matter.

What matters is that, in a sense, i've realised, i write for myself, and no one else.

Feels good.