An extension of writing is blogging. In today’s attention-starved world, blogging seems very old-fashioned. People want tweets and pithy LinkedIn or Facebook posts, not longer musings – all of which I am incapable of. Because I believe that making a good point requires more than 140 or 280 characters. Length is important to understand a person’s viewpoint to appreciate the point being made. Of course, the same can be said as a series of tweets, but I still prefer the undistractedness of blogs where there is no pressure to like, reply or forward. I like the simplicity and cleanness of how a blog page looks.
It has been more than two-and-a-half years since I restarted my blog. I post daily (twice now), but I do not write daily. I chunk my writings typically on the weekend. The daily post format ensures that I do not wait for the perfect essay – which may never happen. I do not hesitate to write half-baked ideas – future iterations will make them better. Once I decided that I am not in the race for followers, likes and shares, it brought a lot of clarity to me. Most importantly, I write for myself, not for others. Writing helps clarify my own thinking and creates a discipline of reading. For me, this is a virtuous cycle – reading-thinking-speaking-writing.
At any time, I have a list of topics that I can write on. And that is good enough to get started. Once I start writing, the ideas flow. Some of the writing is original, while at other times I will aggregate what others have written in a single place. This reading and collating also helps me learn new topics. At times, I find myself going back to my earlier writings to refresh my own thinking.
Blogging has become a great outlet for my thinking. I cannot now think of stopping. The rhythm of having something new to be posted daily has created just the incentive for me to ensure the cycle of looking at the world around with curiosity and imagining a better tomorrow in my mind and words does not stop.
Blogging is in some ways a public diary – albeit with many restrictions so as not to offend anyone. My writing has covered the three themes I like: marketing, entrepreneurship and India. Of late, marketing has been more dominant as I seek to craft the right future vision for Netcore. I still remember keeping a daily diary as a teenager and blogging almost seems to be an extension of that.
As I look ahead, I don’t think I am ever going to run out of topics to write on. We live in exciting times – so much is happening around us. And as long as I keep my own spirit of being open with my ideas and thinking, this blog will continue.
