Blog Awards Challenge

Blog Awards Challenge Winner (Excellence): Caustic Thoughts

Winning Entry Title: I Blog Therefore I Am [Original Link]

Winning entry is reprinted below.

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“But blogging, aside from Perez Hilton and other big time bloggers (you know who you are) is for me a slacker job or a medium and pastime for lonely people to connect. Unless you’re in bloody Siberia or in a Gulag prison, try stepping outside your comfort zone and turn off the laptop or pc, you just might find some real live people to talk to instead of typing away in cyber space.” ---Malu Fernandez in Manila Standard Today

Why do I blog?

I blog because

despite certain circumstances showing otherwise, the constitution says this is a free country where freedom of expression is allowed. I have a right to discuss, to debate and to have a say about the things that matter to me and that affect me. Blogging is as legitimate as gathering in the streets to bang on the palace gates and clamor for change. It is as legitimate as speaking from a podium to rouse the sleepy masses. It is as legitimate as writing for a national publication to prompt awareness into action and because we can’t all be fortunate enough to become high society columnists who get paid even for spewing nonsense, I chose to blog. I have the right to my opinion whether you will read it or not.

I blog because

I recognize technology and respect its rightful place in an inevitable future that will improve and reinvent the past but will not repeat it. Although some things will never change, those that will change in the realms of business, communication, education, science and art shall embrace the digital and virtual era as a part and a complement of who and what they are. The virtual world is real and alive. Only those who refuse to broaden their horizons, explore possibilities and leave the comforts of an old age will be left where they are.

I blog because

it is a powerful tool with which to discharge my social responsibility. I know that there are social, political and environmental ills plaguing our reality. I know that there is a need for responsible leadership, social revolution, environmental accountability and activism within oneself. What shall I do with this knowledge? Aside from acting on it, I also have the duty to tell others of what I know and push them to act. Even if only one person realizes some form of truth because of me and decides to be moved, then I would have been justly rewarded. I would not exchange this opportunity to influence for more money than I can count.

I blog because

I have substance. I have a richness of experience that I cannot keep to myself and that cannot possibly be borne out of nothing or out of a false and lonely existence. Writers can only write from experience. If I had lived in the loneliness of virtual isolation, I would have nothing to write about, but even some of those who do live apart from vibrant society, have far clearer insights into life truths than those who claim to own the attention and admiration of legions.

I blog because

I can. I have a skill possessed by many but not by everyone. I will not waste it but far from using it to enrich myself, I will use it first for no other reason than because it is what I do best. I would be a fool to attempt to chart other waters that I do not love when I have been given the gift of words which I do love and the skill to weave them. I am only guilty of using a gift in the only way that it can see the light of day, even if it is only a virtual light. It would be a greater sin to let it rot in my breast because I cannot hawk it in the streets. If by chance I do grow rich because of this skill, it is merely a bonus.

I blog because

I am driven by my creative spirit. Although I respect structure and conventions, I do not have to survive yet under their restrictions. My online passion is yet to be studied, understood and categorized for the benefit of those who must define or those who comprehend only through structures. Today I am free.

I blog because

I bloody hell just want to. It is an interest, an inclination, a desire. It is not a defect or a sign of social retardation. I have nothing against those who stitch crosses all day, those who drink coffee while swapping their neighbors’ dirty linen or those who walk their feet sore going from one window display to another. People should have enough respect not to mind me if I choose to bleed my brains dry over my virtual parchment.
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