Blog Awards Challenge

Blog Awards Challenge 2nd runner-up (Achievement): Mikelcleus

Winning Entry Title: i blog [original link]

Winning entry is reprinted below.

------

when state-sponsored repression--political, personal or otherwise--reaches unprecedented levels, the world wide web has become an avenue, a sort of last resort, to voice out, problematize, and process pesonal narratives, which, in turn, is part of a bigger meta-narrative of cultures. free blog hosting, like that of google's blogger, contributes to the mainstreaming of the politization of a greater mass of people.

personal is political
blogging is not a mere diurnal account of the writer-artist-activist-businessman. blogging is an assertion of being. it is an assertion against the demands of highly evolved structures of rules which govern our everyday existence. blogging, in its self, is a political statement which says "hey, listen to me! i breathe. i feel. i am human." and blogs are people's personal political spaces.

with this assertion of existence comes our being, our need to be different. yet the need to be connected.

for many bloggers, blogs and blogging have been a medium to vent out their emotions, thoughts and tendencies which, because of societal pressure, both real and imagined, are difficult to articulate outside the blogosphere. here they find not just personal space to broadcast and assert individuality, but also audience who affirms them.

politics in practice
many misconstrue politics, defined loosely as power-structure-people relationships, to be only that as expressed and practiced in the formal political structures. but to box out personal narratives as separate from mainstream politics, to be neutral and unaffected by power relationships, therefore unpolitical, is to put a blind eye on the many problems of the world: poverty, food and energy crises, environment degradation, women and children abuse, racial and ethnic discrimination, the capital crunch, many of which affect us. this is not to say that people blog because they are members of a particular sector of society directly affected by these problems, but to say we blog because we are humans. and as human beings, we are affected in many (direct and indirect) ways. quoting terentius, "homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto (i am a man; nothing human is alien to me)."

others in my self
i blog about my life. when i feel trapped because of societal expectations, i know it is not because i am, but because i was forced into, and that i am not the only one in the same predicament. when i can't buy necessities in the market because of their prices, i know that such state of affairs is not particular only to me. when i am pissed because of the long queue of people who wants to ride the train to god knows which unnamed cubicle in one of the buildings of makati or ortigas, i know i am not the only one pissed in the queue. when i blog, i do not only blog about my self therefore, but i blog of other people as well.

the personal human interest blog is not so personal after all. through blogging, people find connection with other people. and through thus, bloggers are able to regain their humanity, a rejection of the alienating tendencies brought about by a rigid system of economic accumulation.

blog is power
the near impossibility of formal institutional censorship of blogs makes it possible for individuals to tackle more varied themes and interests than in mainstream media. this makes blogging powerful. personal human stories which are not "acceptable" for the mainstream market finds alternative outlet through blogs. tiny voices may resonate across the web and the world over, as long as the writer has the skill and the passion to tell the stories. through blogging, the individual is able to dictate, free of censorship, what is important and what is not. not everyone blog. but, increasingly, technology has made access to the internet more affordable and more convenient, allowing more people an avenue of space to speak out and be heard.
those who blog yields power at the tip of their fingertips. and with any power comes responsibility.

i therefore am
to tell our stories, that is what blogging is all about. indeed, blogging has become an articulation of a nation's consciousness formed from personal narratives. and narratives are experienced in the real world. to say that bloggers are devoid of real interaction is plain ignorant of reality. stories, after all, are better lived than just imagined.

i live. i blog. therefore i am.

------

Visit mikelcleus blog.