What if I don't have anything to write about in this blog?

Even as a kid, I got into a habit of the reading the newspaper, The Hindu, every single morning.  Back then--I don't know if things have changed now--the paper's staff had a day off during major holidays, which meant that there was no paper delivered the morning after. Those non-paper mornings were tough for me.  It was an awful feeling until the day after when the paper resumed.  Ah, those fascinating years before television and the internet!

It was one of those no-paper-mornings when my great-uncle was also visiting with us.  I complained to him about not having The Hindu to read.  He was known for his sarcastic, and often insulting, repartee, sparing nobody--it didn't matter to him whether it was an older woman or a kid like me.  "Why?  Do you have to issue any statement to the press?" was his response to my complaint.

I distinctly recall even now, after all these decades, that I didn't feel insulted at all.  His sarcasm there made me think.  It occurred to me that I did, indeed, want to talk about a lot of issues, but the reserved personality that I was--mistaken by classmates as "shy"--I kept those thoughts to myself.  The adults didn't seem to want to know what I thought about Indira Gandhi or the USSR or anything.  If only the internet and blogging had been invented even by then!

Thoughts I have always had in plenty.  I suspect that most people have plenty going on in their heads.  The question is whether we can say or write anything meaningful to an audience, however small or large that might be.  It is not that there is an audience waiting for me; but, yes, I have statements to issue on matters that I consider pressing.


If I were getting paid to express opinions every morning, then would it be any different?  I would imagine that there will be a pressure within me to say something that could easily become a variation of the pressure that academics face--publish or perish!  And such pressures could then lead to hastily framed opinions based on faulty premises too, similar to how most academic publications have been reduced to a whole lot of intellectual onanism!

Of course, in my professional life, there are plenty of opportunities to express my thoughts.  But, in a classroom environment, I can't offer opinions--I need to be as objective as I possibly can.  I tell students that they can always refer to my blog on my takes on the very issues that I force them to think about.

Blogging then becomes a wonderful space for opinions on a wide range of topics--as long as I have a few minutes and an internet connection.  As a good friend often prefaces her comments, "let me tell you something" is what, I suppose, blogging is about.

While rarely have I taken a day off from blogging--my posts are not merely links to substantive materials from others--I do wonder how I might operate in a context where I am paid to be a blogger.  (Offers are welcome!)  Will I end up echoing a variation of Robert Wright's sentiments?

And, to be honest, I'm looking forward to getting up in the morning without feeling I have to develop an opinion about something and then publicize it.

Over the winter break, I did stay away from blogging.  But, I didn't stay away from the news itself.  I read The Hindu--I was in India during the break.  I suppose the couple of weeks in the Tanzanian small town of Pommern was the only time I was ever shut off from the world for that long a time.  Perhaps that is another reason why I felt so uneasy over those days.  Reading the news, and expressing opinions, seems to be an existential character; I blog, therefore I exist?