[?Q1: Epiphanies. Short title OK?]

Yay! First post! I feel so "in" (may blog na ko!!)—I'm a blogger!!

My nieces looked at me strange when I told them I had no intention of creating a blog. They looked as if they were seeing a new dinosaur for the first time (how's that for an anachronism? and will somebody please look up what anachronism means?). I felt like bloggers were wasting their time pouring out their thoughts online, where people's attention spans lasted only as long as the next pop-up, well, pops-up.

Yet here I am, I guess the bug has bit me again. I'm no dinosaur, a reptile maybe. Slow and cold-blooded—a turtle then. A blogger-head turtle (damn, that was corny, I'm shaking my head right now as I paddle off).

Nu ni nu ni nu…

Back in the day, we called it writing, not blogging. Back in the day, we were happy just to see our names in print, if they gave me an honorarium for my essay, it would have probably been enough to buy a Scott burger for myself and another friend (buy one/take one kasi!). Back in the day, we didn't have the Internet… Man, do I ever feel so old after typing that… sadface

Now I'm back with that "I can do that too, and better" feeling after browsing through SPI's Project Backspace. No I'm not bragging. I am not a better writer than them writer's guild members (better looking, maybe?). Those people do a fine job of writing and have the balls to put their work up for every backseat moderator (like me) to tear into. But their work has reminded me of why I started putting thoughts onto paper, oh so many years ago (remember when we either used notebooks or—gasp—tape recorders?).

The "I can do that too, and better" feeling started in my college (GAUF), where the writing truly sucked (at the time), and the "Official Student Publication" was mostly used as a fan or something to sit on, or to wipe whatever that is you stepped on in Swine Management class (Swine Management, hah!, glorified term for pig shepherd). Back in the day, students at my alma-mater-dear had no choice but to read my column (I was the only one writing about Sharon Cuneta and Kris Aquino in a mostly leftist-inspired school publication). Gad, I just realized… I was Boy Abunda in the making back then?!

I miss that. Not the Boy Abunda aspect of writing that I was heading into, but in making the reader go "Oo nga" or "Di naman" or laugh out loud - that was the best! When a reader sits down for a few minutes and takes your thoughts and makes it part of his/her own. A part of you has been injected into the aether, you created something on print from the nothing in your brain (and I got lots of that in my brain). It could be there years from now. It could be gone the next second. A waste of time? That's OK, as long as it's on company time!

Could we get the same kind of reaction in a web log? Probably not. Right now, I'm fighting the urge to click over to the next site, the average reader is probably long gone by now (downloading porn, maybe? Ok, ok, downloading mp3s or the latest episode of Heroes, if you want to keep it GP). But the important thing is, I need to start thinking again. To put ideas back into the aether instead of just consuming them. Work has blunted my brain, I need my katana ready to sink into the next takoyaki ball. Apparently, writers write for themselves, not for the readers. I write to express my thoughts, to rant and rave, to let it be known that I am a dirty old man in the making - if other people enjoy what I've written, then it's a bonus, it's just a byproduct. But a wonderful byproduct it is!

That was my epiphany the other day. Head-scratcher that was, it took me 7 years to finally form that conclusion (told you work makes you dull). Let the Internet be my whetstone. Let the aethernet tremble for I have returned!!! (cue evil villain music)

Nu ni nu ni nu…