Why I Keep a Blog

Why do I keep a blog? You know, sometimes it's good to figure out why you do something; to understand the motives for your behavior. I guess it applies to everything, including keeping a daily blog. So why keep one? To me, a blog is like an online journal. It's a forum where I can come and talk to myself, and to others as well. I can say anything about anything - it's not like a term paper or anything where topics are selected for you by a professor and you have to observe certain guidelines in writing them up. Here, it's pretty much free style. No grades, no pressure. I love keeping a blog. It's my thing, something I can absolutely call mine. It is something that I own; a record of my daily reflections, thoughts that shape who I am - thoughts occasioned by everyday living; thoughts that build and shape attitudes, and which inspire me toward action. What are some of the other advantages of my keeping a blog?

To begin with, keeping a blog will help me to improve my writing. When I was in middle and high schools, I used to do a lot of fiction writing. I wrote plays, poems and novellas. I would write them in notebooks, and distribute them to my classmates to read. They would wait in line to read my releases. If a certain classmate was in possession of one of my releases and another classmate wanted to read it, they would have to wait until the one who had it was done reading it. I used to feel honored that my classmates loved reading my work. I was like a one-man library, with every volume in my stacks authored by me. In college, I continued to write, mostly poems this time around. I think I wrote roughly 400 poems in my college days. These poems covered pretty much every theme in human culture: happy poems, sad poems, sensual poems, moody poems - all kinds of poems. I was an amateur poet extraordinaire in college, and I enjoyed it. I think I won a couple honorable mentions in international poetry competitions. 

After college, I continued to write, this time in grad school. I wrote poems, in addition to plays and novellas, just like in high school. This time though I wanted to get published. I looked for an agent; actually interviewed with one, and submitted my manuscripts, but no one wanted to get them traditionally published. And so I published them myself. I currently have about 8 titles: 3 collections of poems; 3 novels; 1 collection of plays, and 1 collection of short stories. One of these 8 titles is in hardcover edition, and so that makes 9 books self-published. But largely obscure. Self-publishing without promotion leaves a writer obscure indeed. And poor. But the thing is: I don't want to promote my titles. A lot of their content came from a place within myself of personal struggle. They detail my struggles with identity and autonomy. They explain my frustrations with my family and my country of birth, and indeed myself too. They are not the usual works of fiction which, though autobiographical in some sense, represent the author's effort to please their readers. My books don't necessarily please, even though they may entertain. 

My books are also like psychology treatises wrapped in fantasy. Painful fantasy. But over the years I've been breaking away from the trappings of personal fantasy and melodrama, leaving the psychology bit only. But I don't speak the language of empiricism, and so what others would call psychology, I'd call spirituality. And that's the sort of writer I want to be going forward. I want to be a spiritual writer. By this I don't mean self-help or inspiration, even though what I write will necessarily contain both. I also don't mean theology, even if what I write will similarly contain theology. My interest is in writing stuff that will explain to people in prose what life is about: God, destiny, relationships, sacrifices, devotion, meditation, and so on. I want to educate and inspire, as well as analyze and entertain. I want to use my poetic gifts in oratory-style writing, so that reading my books can eventually please, without provoking - except maybe the thoughts. But not the emotions. I mean, it's emotions I'm trying to sidestep. I want to write for the intellect; for the seeking soul; for the individual interested in practical epistemology and ethics. I want to write material that will benefit the spirit and the soul ever so richly and powerfully; and so, keeping a blog in this regard will help me to hone my skills and become a better writer. 

One more thing concerning my desire to be a spiritual writer: If I become a priest, I will be willing and able to promote the books I will write then, even if I publish them myself, because they will be books right up my alley, books I am interested in. They would be books I'd like to be associated with, not books with all the identity and personality crises that my 8 titles contain. They will be books I'd be proud to market, because they would help people, and would fill people with hope and joy. Yet, I would strive to get them traditionally published, so they can reach a wider audience and generate more income. They would contain messages of triumph. In them I'd tell people that every problem has an expiry date. I would tell people that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I would tell people that God is able to turn our darkest night into the brightness of morning; that if he can turn my troubles to peace, he can turn theirs around as well. From these books would flow spirituality and human development workshops. People would pay money to have me come and give speeches and talks at their various parishes. I would travel all over the world and deliver healing workshops to as many people as require the messages contained in my book to come alive. And for the books to succeed so, they must be well written. It's the only way.

Still another reason I keep a blog is to track my intellectual progress, hoping of course that there would be some to track. On reading the sorts of things I wrote in a year, and comparing them to the sorts of things I write in say, five years from then, I could estimate and see if there has been a change in content, and if this change has been for the better. It's the sort of thing you can do with a journal, and a blog is an online journal. I want to, like pretty much everyone else, develop as a person. If I'm going to be a successful priest, I cannot not grow. I need to develop my charismatic gifts so that I can give of them to others. It's important that I embrace the call to develop and mature, because it is in this maturation that I will find the peace that my soul seeks. I am ready to continue.