The Silent Room

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Small Talk:
Yet another one of those godawful walls of text. What to do, Fazri is such a terrible blogger these days. As usual, I’ll use this chance to insert random pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with the post whatsoever.

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I started blogging way back in May 2004. Back then, I was extending my foundation year because I had to repeat one paper before I could proceed with my degree courses. That meant a four-month semester with only 3 hours of class per week. Needless to say, I had a lot of free time on my hands. This thing was, I was in Melaka, and I didn’t have a car, nor did I have a lot of money to go fooling around town all that often.

So I decided to start a blog.

It was hosted on Blogspot then, and I wrote purely to amuse myself and a few friends who knew the URL. As the years went by, I subscribed to a webhosting plan and started to migrated to Wordpress. Throughout the time, I was going through some rather turbulent times – oh you know, orang muda darah bergelora.

I think it was then that writing became a very serious thing for me. I mean, I’ve been writing short essays for a long time. According to some scraps of paper my mother had meticulously archived, I realised that I started my writing career when I was five years old. It was a few years ago when she showed me her collection, and I remember reading those poorly written essays, scribbled in some noodly script pretending to be Roman alphabets.

Those same essays made me cry, seriously. I was filled with all sorts of emotions. Nostalgia, for a small part, but mostly they were tears of hilarity. I never imagined having to read my own essays again after more than a decade since it was written, and the comedy of it all was just too much bear.

Let’s fast forward to my blogging years. Looking back at my old posts, I noticed that my writing style had subtly changed. Glossing over it, I can somewhat mark three stages of my writing; narrative, commentary, and retrospective. Allow me to elaborate.

I started blogging in a narrative manner. Most of the time I’d be writing about the interesting things that happen on a certain day. It might include flying on a bike, an annoying itch or a moment of saying goodbye. Blogging was an adventure as much as going out and doing things. I even went on and actively interacted with other bloggers, all in the hopes of increasing my readership. Or rather, to put it bluntly, I was quite the attention whore, as much as I hate to admit it.

After a while, instead of talking about my own experiences, I started having opinions about things – mostly about other people and things that other people do. I’d be commenting about understanding people, pious people, and the shit people say to me. Writing with a commentary flavour was quite fun – until my life took a different turn.

There have been a couple of rather dramatic moments in my life, especially so over the last few years. My change of faculty, deaths of relatives and friends, and more recently separated from friends who graduated from university. I suppose it was then that I started looking at things from another perspective. I began to look at things inwardly. As though I projected my inner self out so that I could try to look at myself from another person’s point of view.

My writing frequency dropped, but then every time I wrote, I would spend time to think of what was to be written. I’d choose my words much more carefully, and I’d review them a few times before hitting that ‘Publish’ button. I began to notice the scenery around me, started to appreciate serenity and inner peace, and I even went on to write some fiction. This retrospective phase is where I’m currently at, as you might notice. Before I knew it, churning out long, dreadful walls of text simply became normal for me.

Sometimes I’d criticise myself. Other times I’d console myself. Give myself a pat in back or unleash a fit of verbal rage. I don’t suppose blogging is quite an effective anger-management tool for me, but I guess it’s still better than knocking shit around, wasting money and/or getting hurt. Gradually, my readership went down and before I knew it, I was writing for an audience of one.

I suppose that’s the best part about blogging. Some people gain knowledge and information, others earn an income and/or popularity. The rest of us, well, myself at least, I discovered myself. To write your mind out is to leave a mark of yourself behind. A record, a piece of evidence that you were there. The cold emotionless term for it would be a permanent link, but I like to think of it as a token.

A token to your thoughts, a token of your memory, a token of your existence.

Ah, but what is a blog if it is not read? I know I don’t really have a fan club, but I know for a fact that you are reading this – that assurance alone is enough to satisfy me. To know that someone else acknowledges my existence, that alone is more than enough to keep me content and this blog going.

28th May 2009 was The Silent Room’s fifth anniversary. It’s a bit of a shame that I didn’t celebrate the occasion as any self-respecting blogger should but I’ve been busy. Well, there’s still more to come but for now, I’ll sit back and relish the nostalgia of my web log. A little late for a birthday wish, but I think the place deserves it still.

Bon anniversaire, mon blog.