It probably seems foolish to start a blog in 2025. The Internet is full of blogs, after all. According to Wikipedia, “the first blog” appeared in 1992 (though, of course, there were precursors to the form), and blogs exploded in popularity in the 2000s until there were, apparently, an estimated 500 million (that’s a 5 with eight zeroes after it! o__O) blogs (or bloggish sites) on the web by 2019. And that’s probably a conservative estimate! Furthermore, while many people have been touting the death of the blog for years — which, in tech time, is eons —, it’s not true because, hello, blogs are still all over the web today. So, yeah. A new blog is neither new nor news. XD

So why am I even doing this?

Well, like no doubt almost every other writer out there, every other creative out there, I have all sorts of neuroses — an entire nursery of neuroses! — about my writing, my creative work. It’s fun to make something. That’s why I’ve been writing for years. It’s downright terrifying to present what one has made to the court of public opinion. That’s why I’ve never really published any of my writing in all these years.

And now I’m committing to publishing something I’ve written every week?! What’s up with that?

Well, years ago, I discovered that courage was really important to me. And later I figured out that, not only was courage really important to me, it was what was most important to me. Of all the big words that we use to encapsulate our values, courage was the one that I cared about the most. And that meant . . .

Fuck.

Yeah. . . . That meant I would have to stop hiding. And I have been hiding. All these years, I’ve been writing in private.

Now, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with writing for only oneself. In fact, I do that almost every day. I call it journalling. Some people call it Morning Pages (à la Julia Cameron). And there are other kinds of writing — not just the brain-vomit kind — that one can and does write for just oneself. The purpose of writing is not necessarily to produce something to be shared, after all.

But I have been writing things that I do, in fact, want to share with others. And I’ve been doing it where no one else can see it and criticise it — and me. What is that but hiding? If I want to share what I’ve written, then, duh, I’m going to have to share it. I’m going to have to — *gasp* — put my writing out in public. o_____O

So . . . uhhhh . . . *drops blog into the ocean of blogs*

Tada! ･°˖✧◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜✧˖°.

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(Wow. Those crickets are deafening, aren’t they? XD)

*coughs* As I was saying. . . .

This blog is, in essence, an exercise in practising courage. It’s a way for me to practise courage by — *gulp* — practising in public. (And not just practising writing, but practising publishing and everything that goes along with that.) Worse, for it to be an actual practice, I’m gonna have to do it regularly.

What?? I’m gonna have to practise leaving myself vulnerable to being crucified — or even gently criticised (it’s hard for my overactive amygdala to tell the difference ^^’) — and to do it again and again?? That’s just crazy talk!

In a word: yup. T_T

There you have it. That’s why this blog exists. (Maybe I should have titled my blog “Adventures in Masochism”, no? XD)

Now, I can hear you thinking:

Yeah, yeah. It’s all very well and good for you to practise courage — or whatever it is you’re calling your particular brand of craziness —, but why the hell should I care? Why should I bother reading your blog when there are 500,000,000+ other blogs out there?

Yes, absolutely, your attention is precious. Attention is money. We speak of an “attention economy” these days because attention is no less than a contemporary form of currency. So why should you spend your precious currency here?

Well, before I go any further, let me first thank you for choosing to be here, dear reader. After all, in this post alone, you’re already 700 words deep (and a quick scroll or swipe down will show you that, uh, yeah . . . still gots a ways to go ^^’), so your reading of these very words, in and of itself, is quite the generous act!

Moreover, I don’t know about you, but I have some rather strong feelings about the ways that social media companies have engineered their platforms to deliberately hack human psychology to steal and hoard as much of our attention as they can for their own benefit. -.- So the fact that you’re here visiting my blog at all, uncoerced and of your own free will, is something I want you to know that I very much appreciate.

Thank you. m(_ _)m

To get back to the question, though . . . apart from appreciation, what else can I offer that would be worth your limited time and attention? Well, naturally, only you can decide whether what I have to write is worth your reading it. But here is what I promise:

Everything I write will be written by me (quotations and emoticons notwithstanding). That sentence sounds like a tautology, doesn’t it — until you consider that this is now the day and age of AI, where just about anyone can use AI to generate sentences as a starting point, or even as an ending point, for their writing. I will never do that here. So you can come here knowing that every word was sweated out by a real human being from beginning to end.

Moreover, because it’s a sweaty human being banging away at the keyboard behind the scenes here, you’re inevitably going to see some of that sweatiness. I’m not saying that I’m going to bare all (no one wants to see that, trust me) or that I’m going to deliberately put out stuff that I think is crappy (whether you think it’s crappy is another matter ^^’), but I am saying that you’ll be witnessing someone on a journey towards, ideally, mastery getting better and better. Far from promising perfection, I’m actually promising the opposite. ^^’

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Years ago, I had a white colleague who was everything I was not. She was flowing cardigans that swished, light brown hair like gentle brush strokes, and an unnatural air of imperturbable calm and genuine warmth.

Me? Shapeless jumpers that frumped, straight almost-black hair pulled back in a bun like a strangled gulp, and a naturally turbulent air genuinely warmed by the fire of my frequent frustration at work.

In other words, while I was busy frothing at the mouth at every annoyance, she just calmly carried on — like the professional that she was (and that I wished I were >_<). She had the magical ability to get around our extremely incompetent boss to do her own job extremely competently — and with a smile, no less! She smiled — and meant it — at everyone, no matter how aggravating they (or I ^^’) were.

Annoyingly, I liked her. XD I couldn’t help it! She was just so nice. We became friends. And yet, because I am not so nice, I was resigned to possibly hating her, just a little, in my secret heart of hearts, merely for being so clearly a paragon of perfection — for, after all, her perfection only highlighted how much of a gremlin I really was on the inside. (And still am. *coughs*)

Then, one day, while we were hanging out, just the two of us, she said something not so nice. Oh, she said it in a nice way (XD), but it was definitely not nice. In fact, it was rather petty. No, it was gloriously petty!

And let me tell you, upon hearing the Paragon utter a very un-Paragon-like utterance, I felt relieved. I thought to myself, Oh, thank goodness, you’re human, too! It was then that I realized that I could more than merely like her; I could love her.

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I’m not saying that you will love this blog. (I hope you will, of course! But I’m not saying you will.) What I am saying is, to blend together two lovely things from Japanese (侘び寂び wabisabi + 金継ぎ kintsugi) and add a dash of Leonard Cohen (take a listen at “Athem” in his 1992 album, The Future), it’s the cracks in our creative offerings that are what make them beautiful. (Especially beautiful.)

This blog? This blog is going to have a lot of cracks. I’m hoping you’ll see beauty in my humble efforts here, not despite those cracks, but because of them.

(By the way, if you’re unfamiliar with Cohen’s song, check out the line right before the two lines I am carefully not quoting so I don’t get sued for copyright infringement. XP Its exhortation is perfect.)

In short, my offering is a front row seat to human imperfection (˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶’)> — packaged and presented mostly in words and whimsy! (Words, wordiness. Tuh-MAY-toh, tuh-MAH-toh. =P)

If that resonates with you, you’re in the right place. Welcome again! Get cozy, stay a while. ^_^

If that’s not what you’re looking for, thank you so much for stopping by. If you ever decide to come back (assuming this blog is still here then ^^’), I — me, a human, not a machine — will be here, cracks and all.

Pinky promise.