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Goodbye Blog Break! Hello Summer Break!

As much as I like my recent posts, blogging has not been easy for me lately. Blogging has become somewhat of a chore. Not to say that I don’t like blogging anymore, it’s just that other things take more priority than blogging and they basically drain me of any enthusiasm to blog or even blog surf. I think I only have enough of an attention span for 5 or 6 blogs, before I get bored out of my mind. I somehow enjoy twitter because I get a quick glance of what’s happening to some of the bloggers I still read.

I wonder, since summer break is upon us, will this encourage a fresh surge of bloggers? Will the blogs once again be teeming with posts almost every day? When I started my blog, it was on a summer break and as I remember it, every blog I visited was - for a lack of a better term - teeming with life both from the blogger and the readers. Everyone was so inspired or maybe excited to blog, even comment on posts! Of course, reciprocity is the key.

Will it be the same? I believe after this coming week, everyone will basically have free time (not referring to the working class of course. LOL). There will be time for excursions, time for cavorting, and time for oneself. Lots of free time. And finally, even some time left for blogging.

I however, feel sad, well disappointed in the fact that there are thousands of dead blogs out there. No posts for years, and they just stay there to rot. These blog hosting sites should really clean them up. Some of those blogs even have good titles! LOL! A while back, at one point in my blog life, I wanted to change the name of my blog. And every name I wanted was taken. It was such a waste because all of those blogs’ latest post was around 2000 or 2001. I wonder if can request to have those blogs deleted…Hmmm…


Do you think blogs will come alive again because of the coming summer break?


so what if I like what millions of other people like?!

Is mainstream so bad? I mean, if you look at in a more liberal light, it can seem that way. You lose your individualism, and it’s as if you are being told what to like and what not to. You become like any other average Joe that’s trapped in this commercial sweatshop where nothing is unique anymore. We try to be unique. In fact, we at times desire it. Maybe by going against the current, or maybe by embarking on an original idea or event, or maybe by diversifying our awareness and delving into something unusual; we always think of ways to express ourSELVES.

Nobody likes to be like everybody. We want to be known for who we are and what defines us. But in the billions of people in the world, how different can we really be? Many say that there are no original ideas in the world anymore, only revisions of what has been. What are innovations but a construct of previous ideas. Everything is recycled. What you think is a distinctive and creative idea is but the influence of your environment and what you are exposed to. One cannot honestly say that the idea “popped” into mind without any form of an external coercion. Ideas are born out of necessity. A need to fill in a gap where a challenge used to lie. Would you have thought of that idea if it wasn’t for that necessity?

I am not stating a fact, nor is it a stand on the matter. These are just floating thoughts that needed to be poured out. What I’m trying to say is, if mainstream for you looks, feels, tastes or sounds good, and you will benefit from it, then why not follow the majority? Must we be always…differentiated? I think it was from Shinji’s blog where I read that it’s ok to enjoy Mainstream (at times) because it already is presumably good. And when I say good, meaning you’ll like it. Do not show prejudice to someone who is into the mainstream. If they find joy in it, then who are you to tell them otherwise?

We’re all part of a certain “mainstream” anyway…

P.S. This post was brought about by a certain conversation with a certain self-professed “unique individual” who doesn’t follow anything “mainstream” according to him. Needless to say, the conversation ended without any real resolution.

UNphotographable

Has this ever happened to you? You stroll around the city, walking past hundreds of different people, nothing out of the ordinary to speak of. Then you see it, a moment which will probably make your day and leave you in high spirits. Be it a baby trying to catch a butterfly or the man trying to make a living by performing in the street, during these moments, don’t you wish you had a camera with you?

Well, it happens to me often. I love taking photos especially if they have a story behind them. But there are those instances, unexpected events I would have loved to freeze in time. I found this great idea by Michael David Murphy. As they say, “pictures are worth a thousand words.” Then why can’t a picture BE words? A word by word account of the picture you missed…

Here is my first attempt. My own UNPHOTOGRAPHABLE.

This is a picture I did not take of a young girl picking strawberries in a field in Baguio. The fresh cold breeze blew constantly as the sun gently kissed the soil and the foliage. Sunflowers which lined the field faced and welcomed the sun eagerly. The young girl, dressed in blue, about 5 to 7 years old, rushed the field of strawberry plants, patiently choosing which strawberry looked best. She crouched down to get a better look and feel of each and every strawberry in front of her. Every time she found one she liked, she would pick it. Smell it. Then take a small bite... She took a bite of every one she favored, and put the rest in her container. The saccharine nectar of each bite would fill her mouth and at times drip ever so gently. A smile would fill her lips after every bite as if saying she made the right choice in picking that strawberry. Her mother who was picking beside her asked her daughter to refrain. The little girl heard nothing. She was euphoric in her deliciously red and green world, even if it was for just the moment, when she found her own little sweet rubies.