A few readers have asked why I have been blogging less and less frequently. One colleague expressed his "disappointment". Another reader asked if everything was okay in my life.
Well, everything is okay. Except that I've been too busy with various things (mostly work and family), to be blogging a lot. That's one answer, and it is true. However, another answer (equally true) is that I just don't feel that interested in blogging anymore. In fact I have been feeling distinterested for some time.
It seems a waste to just abandon the blog, especially when I've kept it going for quite a few years. On the other hand, to keep it going just for the sake of keeping it going also seems to be an illogical decision.
Well, everything is impermanent. Blogs are no exception. Most of the Singapore bloggers whom I once considered as my "contemporaries" have largely vanished from the scene as well. That includes Xeno Boy; Molly Meek; Singapore Angle and Singabloodypore. I wonder how many people even remember those blogs/bloggers now.
I've noticed that the less I blog, the less I bother to keep up with the news. Once upon a time, reading the online Straits Times was pretty much a daily habit for me. Now, many days might pass, before I bother to read it once. I still read Today quite frequently, but mostly because I often get handed a free copy while on the way to work.
Due to my regular inattention to the news, I feel somewhat out of touch with this country now. Nevertheless my life goes on smoothly. Sounds a little strange, but it seems eminently possible to get by just fine in one's own life, without knowing too much about the broader national developments. I mean developments in areas like politics, government, education, healthcare, the economy etc.
Maybe the nature of the world now is that people can just easily zero in on the specific information they need, when they need it. For example, you don't need to be reading the newspapers regularly, to know what's happening in the property market. Instead, right at the time when you want to know, you can just google to find out what you want to know. And you could get much more relevant, detailed information from a few dedicated property websites, than from the mainstream media.
I've considered blogging about topics other than current affairs. To some extent, I've already done it. In many of my posts this year, I have often mixed news articles with personal anecdotes drawn from my own everyday experiences. Then again, perhaps the most important question is whether I'm wasting my time blogging here. And whether I should be doing something else.
It's been almost a year since my book Two Baby Hands was published. Part of me feels that it's high time I got started on a second book (I'm considering short stories - I have plenty of ideas floating around in my head). But writing a book takes a lot of time, and I'm not a full-time writer. To succeed, I need to decide exactly what I want to do or not, and after that, I just have to avoid spending any time on things that I don't want to do.
So the question for myself is - do I want to blog, or not? Hmmm.