Make a wish?

I didn’t say much about the occa­sion on this date last year (although I had mused on a little before­hand), mainly because I had just returned from a week’s hiatus from this site, and it was also the first day of my new job. Sigh … doesn’t that all seem a long time ago?

So as Mov­able Type proudly informs me that this will be my one thou­sand five hun­dred and ninety-seventh post, I can also reveal that today is the second birth­day of Wherever You Are. For some bizarre reason, on Octo­ber 15, 2000, I decided to start my own per­sonal site, includ­ing a frequently-updated journal or web­log type of thing (snappy title, eh?) Some­what remark­ably, con­sid­er­ing that any pro­ject I’ve ever star­ted has soon fizzled out due to cir­cum­stances bey­ond my con­trol (or apathy, as it’s also known), this par­tic­u­lar ven­ture has kept going for twenty-four months. It also shows no sign of stopping.

I’ve wondered before why it is that I keep plug­ging away at this site; why — give or take the occa­sional pause — I don’t seem to tire of it. I’ve also wondered why any­one who is of sound mind would wish to main­tain a daily journal on the inter­net, avail­able for any­one to see. Quite rightly, many friends and acquaint­ances think it’s a ridicu­lous idea (although, hav­ing said that, I also find that I tell fewer people about my site these days, pre­fer­ring to keep this aspect of my life a secret to the off­line world).

I’ve never really come up with any sat­is­fact­ory answers to these ques­tions, then. Why did I start this site? Why does it keep going? Why would any­one main­tain such a site? After two years, the best I can come up with is that I need some­where to spill out all the words that fill my head every day. I need some­thing with a little more struc­ture than note­books, because I’ve scribbled away on lined paper for my eyes only (and con­tinue to do so, on occa­sions), but the fact that I have an audi­ence here does pre­vent me from becom­ing too self-absorbed and intro­ver­ted. Yes, obfus­ca­tion abounds but, believe me, it’s still more ordered and read­able than any­thing I write in private.

I also do this because, increas­ingly, I don’t have to think about it any­more. This is why I’ve also begun to feel so dis­con­nec­ted from the whole world of web­logs. I don’t care about web­logs; I don’t care about the latest web­log innov­a­tion, because this site doesn’t war­rant it.

It’s as nat­ural writ­ing here as — as — as — oh no, I’ve run out of ana­lo­gies. Yes, me, run out of ana­lo­gies. This is obvi­ously the start of the slip­pery slope towards can­cel­ling myself out.

And the down­sides? Yes, there are down­sides. The fam­ous com­plaint of many people who run sites like this, that read­ers think you are your site. Wherever You Are is only an aspect of me, an exten­sion of who I am. If I were to put a fig­ure on it, I’d say that you know less than a quarter of the real me from this site. That’s the way it should be.

I guess the other down­side is the one I most often regret — that because it’s so easy, such an auto­matic thing to write here, it pos­sibly stops me from devot­ing words and thought to some­thing a little more per­man­ent, a little more long-lasting. Pack­age together the quant­ity of words I’ve put on to these vir­tual pages, and I’d cer­tainly have a novel there. Damn it.

Some­how I wanted to say some­thing a bit more ordered and sens­ible about the second anniversary of this site. Unfor­tu­nately, it’s come out as an aim­less ramble. Still, con­sid­er­ing what the past two years’ worth of entries have been like, maybe that’s only appropriate.

Thanks for reading.