What Now?

It has been so long since I came to this site and shared anything beyond an apology for not writing here. I enjoyed writing here, and though there were only a few folks who came through, it felt like something small and manageable. Of course, many of us who share in some way long for a larger audience, and perhaps the advent of indiscriminate and mass sharing via Facebook and Twitter (and Tumblr, Posterous, etc.) makes blogs feel that much more old fashioned. There was a point when I didn't really read many blogs anymore, either.

The internet has become something different from what it once was for many of us in my generation. I lived on sites and message boards, and comment archives for some sites. Now, I'm in and out quickly, though the internet seems to hum in the background in my work, personal, and waking life in a way much like music, passing in and out of my primary zone of attention, but never for very long. With that, so too have gone blogs and other forms of serialized (or random) writing.

If I had the ability, I would create a site with a few trusted folks who I know would add something interesting when they have time. I would send it to people much the way I share links or start email discussions with a curated group of friends - in the interest of sharing, interacting, gaining something from that interaction.

In the years where I have fallen quiet on this site, I have not been writing elsewhere - not on another website, not in a personal weblog or journal account, not even in long form. And my letter writing, which was already haphazard at best, has been reduced to occasional birthday cards. I long for the time - but more importantly - the discipline to write regularly, honestly, and in a way that seeks and debates truth, community, this thing of life that passes so quickly. I am less interested in cataloging the acts that intervene between entries and more interested in exploring where I've been and where I'm going (as well as where "we" have been and where "we" are going) through a community of trust.

Part of me feels like there was an opportunity for that with this site or some successor that I could have built with friends years ago. I'm still interested. I still think about and try to live this "Asian American" thing, and the years have made me feel not more skeptical about these ideas of community, but more interested in exploring the nuances of this little sliver of the American experience in which I have invested my hopes, dreams, blood, sweat, and tears.

How to do that is my next big challenge. If there's anyone out there, I welcome your thoughts.