Photo: Jim Paredes (Source: http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/)
It's been almost one year since I started blogging seriously. Now, I average more than one blog entry per day. I wonder if I can sustain this "blogging energy."
Last Sunday, 8 June 2008, I read an interesting article in the Philippine Star. This article is by Jim Paredes who maintains a column called "Humming in My Universe." The title of the article is "Why I blog."
Note: Jim Paredes is a member of the famous Filipino singing group called Apo Hiking Society. Jim is also an Ateneo alumnus. He maintains a blog titled "Writing on Air" (http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/).
In his article, Jim tells his readers why he is a blogger:
"One gets to dialogue not with one or two people at any given time but with the whole world -- that is, if you can get everyone to visit your blog site...
"Why expose myself to comment, some of which can be downright negative and nasty, as my anonymous reader asks?... It is because, deep down, we all need to connec to others. We are alive when we are connected. My own yearning to connect is heightened and colored by my artistic bent. I am an artist. Arts must create, and must release their creations to the world in more ways and with more ugency than non-artists do. It is my nature to communicate. It is therapeutic for me...
"A writer writes with the hope that the world will read what he writes. I make songs so that people will sing them. The very nature of creativity is to take wings and fly, catch someone's imagination or land somewhere where it can embed itself in someone's life and thus make its mark on the world.
"In the Christian tradition, we are told that God made the world in His own image and likeness. A book, a song, an architectural design, a poem, a painting or any other work of creation is a creator's way of trying to be God-like. By making his/her own imprint on the world. In my case, writing/blogging is hust one way of making my mark by conversing and sharing my thoughts with inhabitants of this place called cyberspace. I write and leave behind my own image and likeness. There is a layman's theological explanation to this: Just as it is God's nature to be everywhere, it is within us as heirs to divinity to attempt to do likewise!
"If I had been an American Indian two centuries ago, I would have been adept at smoke signals in my need to communicate with people in the distance. If I had been a caveman, I woould have carved drawings in my cave. Expression and creativity are natural impulse.
"Just as our cells multiply, I wish to multiply my presence in the world. In sexual terms, gustong magpalahi. Do you every wonder why a man releases six million sper cells when only one is needed to create life? My theory is because life likes to express its own abundant self.
"The risk of course, is that one can get criticized, condemned, laughed at, just as one can receive praise and adulation. That's okay. It comes with the territory. The very act of being alive is to accept the risk of being exposed to the ups and downs, the ying and yang of living. Where there is light, there must be shadow. Opposites exist tov alidate each other.
"In the cyber age, I dare say, it is better to blog, even if I get criticized, than not to blog at all!"
In my case I started blogging because I wanted to document most of my actitivities during my sabbatical leave (See http://raffysaldana.blogspot.com/2007/06/nth-attempt-at-blogging.html and http://raffysaldana.blogspot.com/2007/06/sabbatical-leave.html)
But somehow I identify with what Jim wrote in his article. Oftentimes I find a yearning to create. Does this make me an artist? Well, I believe that everyone (as a human being) has an "artistic side."
Last Sunday, 8 June 2008, I read an interesting article in the Philippine Star. This article is by Jim Paredes who maintains a column called "Humming in My Universe." The title of the article is "Why I blog."
Note: Jim Paredes is a member of the famous Filipino singing group called Apo Hiking Society. Jim is also an Ateneo alumnus. He maintains a blog titled "Writing on Air" (http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/).
In his article, Jim tells his readers why he is a blogger:
"One gets to dialogue not with one or two people at any given time but with the whole world -- that is, if you can get everyone to visit your blog site...
"Why expose myself to comment, some of which can be downright negative and nasty, as my anonymous reader asks?... It is because, deep down, we all need to connec to others. We are alive when we are connected. My own yearning to connect is heightened and colored by my artistic bent. I am an artist. Arts must create, and must release their creations to the world in more ways and with more ugency than non-artists do. It is my nature to communicate. It is therapeutic for me...
"A writer writes with the hope that the world will read what he writes. I make songs so that people will sing them. The very nature of creativity is to take wings and fly, catch someone's imagination or land somewhere where it can embed itself in someone's life and thus make its mark on the world.
"In the Christian tradition, we are told that God made the world in His own image and likeness. A book, a song, an architectural design, a poem, a painting or any other work of creation is a creator's way of trying to be God-like. By making his/her own imprint on the world. In my case, writing/blogging is hust one way of making my mark by conversing and sharing my thoughts with inhabitants of this place called cyberspace. I write and leave behind my own image and likeness. There is a layman's theological explanation to this: Just as it is God's nature to be everywhere, it is within us as heirs to divinity to attempt to do likewise!
"If I had been an American Indian two centuries ago, I would have been adept at smoke signals in my need to communicate with people in the distance. If I had been a caveman, I woould have carved drawings in my cave. Expression and creativity are natural impulse.
"Just as our cells multiply, I wish to multiply my presence in the world. In sexual terms, gustong magpalahi. Do you every wonder why a man releases six million sper cells when only one is needed to create life? My theory is because life likes to express its own abundant self.
"The risk of course, is that one can get criticized, condemned, laughed at, just as one can receive praise and adulation. That's okay. It comes with the territory. The very act of being alive is to accept the risk of being exposed to the ups and downs, the ying and yang of living. Where there is light, there must be shadow. Opposites exist tov alidate each other.
"In the cyber age, I dare say, it is better to blog, even if I get criticized, than not to blog at all!"
In my case I started blogging because I wanted to document most of my actitivities during my sabbatical leave (See http://raffysaldana.blogspot.com/2007/06/nth-attempt-at-blogging.html and http://raffysaldana.blogspot.com/2007/06/sabbatical-leave.html)
But somehow I identify with what Jim wrote in his article. Oftentimes I find a yearning to create. Does this make me an artist? Well, I believe that everyone (as a human being) has an "artistic side."
If Jim Paredes paraphrased a famous quote from William Shakespeare ('It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all"), I would like to paraphrase a famous quote from Rene Descartes ("I think therefore I am"): "I BLOG therefore I AM."
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Cheers,
.
6/11/08
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