Courage in Blogging

Some people perceive writing as a cowardly act--instead of risking life and limb out in the battlefield, writers act as catalysts behind documents and books. Yet looking back at local history, several of the bravest men have been writers (and imprisoned because of it). The national hero Jose Rizal drew the ire of our Spanish conquerors not because he physically defied them but because he wrote out against them. Author Butch Dalisay similarly endured prison during the martial law era yet he's easily one of the country's most recognizable writers. So in several ways, perhaps writing is indeed one of the bravest thing a person can do.

I think what makes writing special is its sense of permanence. Once you put it down on paper, you can't take back your words, you can't deny that you wrote it, you can't say "I lied" and expect people to believe you. If speaking something out loud makes it real, that's doubly true for the written word. And in certain ways, people don't believe something until they've seen it in print. You can report an unlikely incident to a friend or relative and they might be skeptical of it. But once they read it somewhere, irregardless whether the source is factual or reliable, they're more inclined to believe it rather than simply take your word for it. The written word has power.

Yet this power can easily backfire. If writing has a sense of permanence, it can similarly be used against you. Which brings me to blogging.

What sets blogging apart from other modes of writing is that blogging is attached to an individual and it's personal. I can't hide under the guise of "oh, it's fiction" or "it's poetry, don't take it literally" (of course bloggers' writing style may vary and have different effects but for the most part, most bloggers write what they meant to imply). Sure, there are escape routes--I can be an anonymous blogger or an enigmatic publisher. But as far as most blogs are concerned, they're attached to specific identities or personas that at the end of the day, can be tracked down and held accountable for. I mean we've heard of employees getting fired from their jobs because of what they blog about--blogging has consequences and they're not always positive.

For me, blogging taught me courage. Because honestly, my opinions won't always be popular and I've been attacked by several people for what I post in my blog. I could write about safe topics, but if that's just going to be the case, why am I blogging if I don't get to speak out what I want to speak out? Better yet, why will I blog about maintaining the status quo? It's my opinion that writers, no, people, usually write to cause change (a change in emotion, a change in the political climate, a change in perspective, or simply a change in humanity). If I don't have something substantial to say, why bother talking about it?

And perhaps what's more important about blogging is that I'm held accountable for it. I've never professed to be someone else when I blog. People can even track me down because of my blog. I've certainly made mistakes in my blog and people have chastised me about it. What even hurts is that a part of my unpopularity is because of what I blog about. But hey, that's blogging. I'm accountable for what I write.

I think at times, the question for me isn't whether I can write something well or not. It's whether I should blog about something or not, good writing be damned. And I think that's something bloggers should keep in mind. It's nice to have good grammar, correct spelling, and a way with words but that's not what's necessary when it comes to good blogging. What's important I think is you have something you want to talk about, and you do so. What you blog about is up to you--as long as it's important to you. You can ignore what people think--it might be trivial to them but it's valuable to you. Do so and speak out. It can be about your lunch, about a television show, about a real-world incident, or something you just dreamed about. If you think it's important we read about it, blog about it.

But again, the first step begins with courage. The technical skills of writing comes second.