cakap cakap...blogging !

I have been asked if I am a Muslim? If I am a card carrying member of Pakatan Rakyat? Why am I a Malay who denounces other Malays. Why do I write so much about Malaysia when I do not even live there? Who the f@#K am I?

How would the answer to these question affect you? Who I am, where I live or what I do has no bearing at all on the life you live. Possibly what I write might because you may or may not agree with what I write. Even here you can chose to click me out of your life and within a second I am gone.

When I am on my PC and land on any site on the Net  - it will take me just a few seconds to decide if I want to stay or leave that site. I have exit sites when the layout of that site does not appeal to me. When the fonts annoys my eyes. When the first sentence of an article does not grab my attention. So to those that disagree with what I write – click me out of your sight and your life!

Do not linger on my blog to be upset by what you read. If you disagree with what I write and you want to convey those feelings to me I would welcome any spirited debate if done without malice. Where I live, who I am or what I do does not matter because it is only my views that are put into the public domain. If I put anything else that is part of me onto my blog then that would mean that too is open to debate and discussions.

We now live in tumultuous times. Until a few years back  - two or three at the most – I do not know what a blog was and blogging was akin to mountain climbing – something I would never attempt even if my life depends on it. Apart from isolated instances when I am required to submit essays in school and prepare project papers in business situations, I have never written anything for myself or for others to read and ponder about.

Sending an email was an effort I could manage only with the assistance of others around me. A few weeks back I found out through a friend that you could, while traveling in a vehicle, take pictures of your journey and transmit the images to me via the Internet instantaneously. Every time I go on Skype to talk and see my daughter and her family in real time from Canada is a source of great joy and wonderment for me. And all this at no cost to me! Everyday I learn.

Sometimes I feel that I would rather have a blog where only ten or twenty people would read what I write – and I read what they write. Then we would all know each other by name – who we are, where we live and what we like and dislike. And through our blog we exchange views and ideas. We communicate -  a two way process.

Steadyaku47 is too impersonal for me. I find it hard to understand steadyaku47. Since I started working on the blog again these last few months I know that I have a steady number of people who will read what I write…...now here is the part I do not understand. Why do these people stop on steadyaku47? To read what I write? Linger on to listen to the music I posted? To laugh at what I think is funny and wanted to share with them?

Yes I do get comments and e-mails sent to me but 99.9% just land on my blog, read what they want and then our connection ends. You are just a statistic on my stats meter. I can trace you back to which country you are from, which city, which suburbs – even to which street – but that is all. It is so fleeting a connection and nothing comes out of it. That is why I sometimes think that it would be more fulfilling for me to have 20 people read what I write and stay connected to me and build on it. Would I rather have 20 people that I can connect with or a 1000 that hit and run? You tell me what you would rather have?

For me it is not enough to be able to write what I want and have it out onto the public domain for people to ponder, discuss and debate with it. Let me give you an example. Last week I posted a piece I found on my daughter’s Facebook “Death is Nothing.” at: 

http://steadyaku-steadyaku-husseinhamid.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-nothing-at-all-death-is-nothing-at.html

To me it was a well-written piece by someone able to express what he thought of death. And I wanted to share that piece with others because it moved me emotionally. That was until Antares sent me this comment: “Very healthy attitude towards death; reflects a healthy attitude towards life!”  That thought never crossed my mind and by taking the trouble to share his thoughts with me, Antares broaden my understanding of that “Death is Nothing” piece much more then I could do by myself. That my friend is why you should not hesitate to share your thoughts with others. Life is a learning process and I am eager to learn from any of you that care to share your thoughts.