I must have been about 10 when I joined my elementary school’s paper, the Grader’s Folio. I didn’t think I was particularly talented but it seemed like the kind of club the honor students signed up to so I did. During my time in school, there was a lot of focus on academic meritocracy and honor students are those who usually rank high based on grade point average. It certainly was not an exclusive club and anyone who wanted to write was welcome but I observed that it was mostly the top students who wrote and contributed to the paper more. I joined because I was amongst friends but I concede that my friends were far better writers and campus journalists than me. Which is probably why my school paper adviser made me copyreader instead. I may not be the best writer but I feel confident in saying I do have a decent ability to spot good writing. To this day, I still use the copyreading marks I learned when I was 11 whenever I spot errors in missives I read. I find real pleasure in reading a well-written article and often wish I could write as eloquently as the author of said account. Just as in below article about writing so aptly put, I wish I had written it myself.
Often, I find catharsis in writing. Whenever I feel heavy emotions, I articulate my feelings in written words. Writing allows me to decompress. It allows me to set aside thoughts that would otherwise plague my waking moments had I not written them down. More importantly for me, it allows room for introspection. Words uttered in anger cannot be taken back but in writing, opportunity is accorded to rewrite, to polish or even soften the tone to reflect the writer’s fluid state of mind. Human emotions are nuanced after all.
Writing is my favorite form self-expression. Over time, I feel that I have found my writing voice, one that resembles how I communicate in real life. I use it every day of my life from scribbling down random notes, penning my gratitude list or writing e-mails for work. While I have only had this blog up for four years as a pandemic project, I’ve kept a blog in college too. I don’t recall what happened to it, I think that I might have deleted it because it was full of teenage angst and was no longer representative of the person I was becoming but I now fully regret not archiving it. It would have been nice to look back and reflect on my journey.
Admittedly I do not update this blog as often as I’d like. What I thought was going to be just a space for indiscriminate ramblings turned out to be a little bit more of conscientious task. I felt a duty to be more discerning of what I put out here because I realize words carry some weight and I feel obliged to do good by the handful of friends and readers who read my writing. Kahit papano kailangan may sense!
Anyhow, I hope to be able to keep writing here especially because I just renewed my hosting for another three years and it’s not cheap!