Why Do I Blog?
I
blog, therefore I am. Without blogging, I would surely have an essence,
but no existence. Not only does existence precede the essence, but I am
of the view that, to exist one carves a different path than to live off
the essence.
To exist, I need to know that I do. To discover my essence I need only
to see the outcomes of my participation in the social production process.
My works at home, office or community mark my essence. The purpose that
I have created of life, and conveniently amended from time to time in
order to suit the societal circumstances, do bring out the essence. But
I can have the existence, even sans the manufactured timeline, and without
succumbing to the social infrastructure in place.
I have chosen to exist, despite the essence, and at times, because of
them. My essence, the social byproduct that I have ended up becoming,
is what baffles. Despite the fact that I have been shoved into the systems
of discriminatory cultural education, disastrous political environment,
and regressing social institutions, I have chosen to exist. And often
times, for the very same reasons, because for me, its heinous to silently
witness the existing disparities among peoples based on socio-economic
classes, defined race structures, distinct religions, geographic locations,
gender roles, and sexual orientations, that I have chosen to exist.
My choice to exist has bred conflicts. Conflicts even at the most fundamental
levels. The angst at witnessing injustices necessarily being accompanied
by my inability to replace the existing system of justice. The torment
at experiencing myself being co-opted as a consumer by the very mechanism
of economic exploitations that I wish the world were devoid of. The anguish
of attempting to understand if the human nature is naturally inclined
to vulgar competitions or productive cooperation. I am in essence a part
of each passing day of mass social injustice, of the class struggles that
are being lulled to silence.
My essence permits me not. Because my essence was not one of my careful
consideration. What I make of my life has not been my prerogative. Partly
because my choices were limited by the social givens. I became an essence
from what was offered to me, in terms of education and skill sets. I could
not choose enough to be the essence that I have turned out to be, or churned
out to be.
But I have no qualms to claim that I have freely chosen to exist. The
very understanding of necessity of my existence under the circumstances
of self-inflicted hopelessness, has made it the most difficult choice
indeed. But more than what I have emerged, my existence tells me, I still
am. In my blood and flesh, I am. My sheer existence provides me hopes
whenever my (socially) manufactured essence fails to. Then I turn inwards
to seek the questions that are more needed to be answered than the questions
that come on the platter. I begin to question the platter.
Therefore I blog. This is one platform, consciously created by my existence.
Despite my essence and at times because of them. With the free choice
undetermined by a system that I do not wish to resist. I do not resist
and lift placards because I do not wish for any justice. My fundamental
freedom is not for anyone to grant me because I plead or protest, but
it is inherent in my existence and I will express it in innumerable ways
yet unknown, yet not apprehended.
My blog provides me those possibilities. Possibilities which contradicts
each other to form a synthesis that’s very social, very political
and yet very personal. Because I must exist with the amalgamation of these
layers and their infinite possibilities, not perish because I might be
affected by any of them adversely.
I can continue to flourish, to earn what is called illicit money, to walk
on the red carpet of the Oscars as though that were some form of life
and I could win the recognition of this world in terms of Nobel Prize,
which Sartre refused and Gandhi was not offered.
And yet as I would have drooled in these capitalistic success on a competitive
turf, I would be rich in essence. I would be fitting into the system which
offers me the essences. As a billionaire or a god-fearing passive witness,
a loyal national overjoyed at the prospect of proving loyalty or a conscientiously
participating voter who deserves the kind of government that is elected
even without her/his consent, a teacher comfortably preaching lies or
a student avowedly professing silence to earn what are called grades,
an acclaimed imaginative poet or a regular activist on call to stage protests,
I could be all of that by essence and nothing in
terms of my own existence.
I know many who have ceased to exist and yet have been living for doing
what is essentially their source of sustenance, financial and otherwise.
Like the innocent and basically good people believing in the principles
of karma or the prospects of rebirth or fear of hell who do not swear
in front of women or children and drink not in the company of the sober,
who frequent places of worship or the presidential palaces to reaffirm
their faiths. Good people are aplenty who mean no harm, in effect, also
feel no harm, but effective ones to question the essence of the systems
some have carefully preserved for their class interests, are oh so few.
Those few need to connect to each other. Not just express their selves,
after coming out of their prescribed boundaries of essence but also link
each other in a way that will not seek any amendments to existing systems
of protected plutocracy, but question the essences that have resided in
us lot, since thousands of years, and replace, not change, the systems
of exploitations.
I blog because I see those peoples are abound. They are educated. May
not be formally so. They are agitated. Of course not systematically. They
are just not organized. As beings, and even as inanimate beings, we have
an existence. We shall express ways to exist in completely reverse possible
manner than what exists today in an essence-driven state of competitive
pursuits.
Therefore I blog. In hope.
Saswat
Pattanayak
blog@saswat.com