Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Why Blogging ?

"Nice to read to your blogs, how come you find ideas and more importantly time ?", Anil asked me sometime back. I remember I asked a similar question to my friend, Raveen last year, "Why do you go out for trekking? What fun can there be in climbing mountains ?". To which he had answered, "Trekking is like self-test and self-stress. I like to put myself under some challenge to see how much I can take ?". I might not have such simple answer but this post tries to answer why I do blogging or why I find blogging interesting ?

By nature I usually indulge in those activities which are meaningful to me or which make me think. While I was writing my first blog (six things to be unlearned) I was very frustrated because I could not make certain set of people to see logic and reasons. May be I am not that good in articulating things while speaking. So, I decided to write and share my thoughts with those people (hopefully they have read it). To be more concrete, I spent more than 15 dollars to send a letter to India explaining in details how illogical and impractical their opinions and decisions were (and those people didn't even accept the post). Anyways thats how it got started. There was a second reason which instigated me to write blog. I was writing an essay on "What I learned in USA?" (I haven't posted it yet) and subsequently blogging helped me realize that writing something constructive is really a mental exercise and it can as well be fun.

So, the practice of blogging turned out to be a good way to vent out frustration. After writing something, I do feel less stressed and less frustrated as I feel I could express something I had in mind. Again, time is barely an issue since I space out things over days and write in piecemeal.

A general theme so far has been on criticism and sarcasm and what you read is pretty much what and how I think. I am not that social and outgoing person but I just love to observe things - how people are saying things, what they are saying, what they are wearing, etc. So, if you have talked to me and I haven't complemented you on something, that does not mean I haven't noticed it in you.

Being involved in research work, we are continuously reminded that writing is a skill and we should learn to sell our work. For me it is a training ground where I can learn to organize thoughts, express relevant issues and get feedback from peers. Moreover, in this busy world we may not always find it easy to approach someone to share what we feel or what we have read. This asynchronous mode of blogs really helps doing that (doing the same through emails would be considered as spam). Oh yeah ! once my friend told me that if I want to find a date I can share my blogs to impress her.

Somehow ideas pour in faster than I can write. Since PhD students don't have official non-working time, sometimes it is difficult to find spare time from doing experiments and writing technical papers. But all those who have read and commented my blogs, please continue to do so and continue to give your valuable opinions. Some of the next releases will be on topics like -- Bengalies, Wierd Human Activities, how to find a 2-body problem and so on.

3 comments:

Anil Giri said...

Thanks for answering my query and that too "REAL FAST" :) I have always found you a keen observer of things and thats what make you different from mortals like us. Keep writing!!

mahboob said...

Well its really upto a person as how he manages his time. If only you find time then only you will continue with whatever you are doing.... that the excuse we always give but i personally think one should have the passion to pursue with what you wish to do.

YT (Yours Truly) said...

Blogging simply rocks!!
And I can see that as well through your blogs. Its fun to go through your blogs - they are very expressive and I think I can relate to them better because I have known you for more than 6 years now.