Ewan Ko Sayo!

O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
- - Plato, The Phaedrus

Does this mean that Plato, if living at the present, would choose not to bring his writing to the Web? Is Plato, the Greek geek who theorized the presence of a third sex called androgyny, adherent/preserver of old school style of writing which consists of pen and paper could never be a techie? I applaud him for prophecizing a future filled with inventions that make life easy but at the same time, lessen our interest in nourishing our minds. Shortened text messages that look like a composition of an illiterate, saving birthdays and other important events in cellphones instead of simply having the memory and heart to remember them, normal people using audiobooks, subscribing to e-mail alerts so as not to forget schedules... these are some of the products of technology which both Plato and I may disapprove of. However, blog is an exemption.

The advent of blogs, for me, had been the impetus behind the revival of people's enthusiasm towards writing. The art undergone its dark age, and it struggled to find its savior. Along came the Internet. It has all the powerful tools that cost very little or nothing at all. Add open source to that and we're facing a possible digital anarchy because resources here are more likely to remain if they are given away. The Web invited us to "log" on and experience another world, an imaginary repository of every information known by humankind and probably the machinery that can lead us to the unearthing of the undisclosed. And we all know that by writing, we reveal a secret. Therefore, the web serves as the vault of people's secrets as it is home to open journals. Once accumulated, processed, and summed up, words can be reduced to a sentence revealing a simple fact. Or, if one goes against the another, the thesis + antithesis = synthesis applies.

It means we get to learn more about the generalities of life. Get to know more about people and their behaviors, learn from them or learn to deal with them in case of misaligned beliefs. But you know what's so great about our blog writing? It acts as a mirror to our souls. Ugly words reflect an ugly inside, and sometimes, great yet misused talent. It is up to you if you want to be seen as ordinary, a great person, a great writer, or both. So, for me, it doesn't matter if your thoughts were written on paper or on-line. Just write... and let me know about you.