[Editor's Note: July 20, 2025: The post below is unfinished. I started writing it to mark the 20th anniversary of this blog. But then, once I started writing, I realized that the post I was intending to write was going to be really long, and I abandoned it in favor of a much shorter post. That much shorter post is here. But now that a couple years have gone by, I've decided to post this unfinished draft as well. Even though I didn't finish it, it still represents an attempt to explain my relationship with this blog.]
I first started this blog on October 14, 2003. Which means, I've now been blogging for 20 years.
Wow, the years get away from you fast, don't they? 20 years already? Where does the time go?
I've got some mixed feelings about this blog. On the one hand, I'm happy with how this blog functions now in its current form, and I'm glad I've got it around to keep me company. On the other hand, I'm deeply ashamed of much of the stuff I've written on this blog in the past.
I'll start with the positives--I'm glad I have this blog around to give me a place to put my thoughts on everything I read, watch or listen to.
I'm at a stage in my life now where I no longer desire to go out and be social. Around about the time I hit my late 30s, I lost all desire to go out and socialize. (I think this is the same for a lot of people.)
I no longer want to be a party animal or a social butterfly. All I desire now is to stay home and read books and watch stuff.
I mean, I've always been an introvert, and more predisposed to staying in than going out. But when I was younger, I felt like I should be going out and doing stuff. (Other introverts will perhaps relate). Back in 2013, I lamented that I was zoning out in front of the TV every night instead of...
having adventures, meeting new people, dancing with pretty girls and living life to the fullest instead of just zoning out in front of my TV every night.
...but that was back in 2013. Now, I'm ten years older, and 2023 me absolutely does not want to have adventures or meet new people. 2023 me wants nothing more than to just sit comfortably at home every night, read books, listen to podcasts, or watch TV.
And since I've now fully embraced this introverted, sedentary lifestyle, I'm now glad I have a blog so that I can chronicle all the various things I read, watch and listen to.
Mind you, now that I'm middle-aged, and have 2 kids, and multiple jobs, I've got precious little free time to read, watch or listen to stuff. (e.g. Last year I only managed to watch one movie.) But in the little free time that I do have, I'm happy to just sit at home, read some books, and do some blogging.
[For example, back in early August I finally had some free time to myself when the wife and kids were with the in-laws, and my priority was not to get out to bars and meet up with friends, but rather to use that time to sit and home and watch The Outer Limits and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.]
Now, I suppose I don't have to post reviews of everything I read, watch or listen to. But I like to. I like to talk about what I've read or watched. I like to have an outlet to dump out my thoughts. And I'm glad I've got this blog to do it.
(And my Youtube channel as well. But I tend to think of my youtube channel as just an extension of this blog. After all, it's the same activities I do on this blog--i.e. my reviews--just in vlogging format instead of blogging format.)
There is, however, a caveat to all this positivity, and that is that with any form of social media, digital addiction is an issue. (I talked about this in a previous vlog--Let's talk about social media addiction and Booktube).
To me, digital addiction comes in two forms:
1) Becoming reliant on attention from others--e.g. when you write a blog post, and somebody pays attention to you, you feel validated. When you write a blog post, and nobody comments on it, you feel depressed.
2) Having difficulty logging off--e.g. you think "I'm just going to quickly write up a little blog post. And while I'm here, I'll just take a quick look at my Twitter feed, and then watch a couple Youtube videos, and check Facebook, and....wait, where did the last couple hours go?"
Both of these have to be managed to have a healthy relationship with blogging/vlogging. But both of these are difficult to manage because social media is deliberately designed to be addictive in this way. i.e. because of evolutionary psychology, our brains our hard-wired to seek the dopamine hits that we get from positive attention from others, and it's difficult to just turn this.
That being said, I think I have mostly overcome my addiction to receiving positive comments from others. Back in 2006, after I wrote a blog post, I used to check multiple times a day to see if anyone had commented on it. And then, if nobody commented on it, I used to feel depressed. (Yeah, I know. It sounds really pathetic when I come out and say it so bluntly. But, be honest, it's not just me, right? This is how most of us interact with social media, because it's how our brains are wired.)
But now I've mostly accepted that I'm writing for myself.
[Readership of this blog fell off a cliff many years ago. I used to have several friends who read and commented on this blog. Now I'm down to just a couple readers (*). I suspect the main reason is that all my old friends are now middle-aged, and are just like me--extremely busy with work and kids--and don't have time to keep up with everyone's blogs anymore. Or perhaps I've been abroad for so long that all my old school friend have forgotten about me. Or perhaps I alienated my old Christian school friends with all that ranting I did against Christianity and conservatism. (Why would they read this blog when all I did was insult their beliefs?) Or perhaps, as I theorized here, it's because this blog got taken over by TESOL materials from 2013, and that's not of interest to any of my old friends. Or maybe it's because Facebook and instragram, etc, have taken over social media, and no one reads blogs anymore.]
But... whatever the reason, very few people read this blog anymore, and I've come to accept that I'm mostly just writing for myself now. I no longer expect to get comments or feedback on most of my posts, and I think that's for the best--it's helped me to break my addiction to getting validation through the comments.
* Whisky, as always, thank you for the support.
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