I used to maintain a blog at Xanga a few years back. Spending an hour to sit down and write a (long) blogpost had been a norm rather than the exception – not just for me, but for many in my generation. We didn’t mind sharing our philosophical, emotional, if not sometimes naive, young thoughts to the public. It was the good age when (non-commercial) writing was part of our life.
And then the introduction of the social media completely changed the landscape. I started my Facebook epoch in 2007, when the social network began to gain traction, and soon I – and most of my friends – ceased to write long blogposts. Indeed, Xanga has closed down a month ago. It was not just because our time have become much more constrained by other work, but also because we all have much short attention span nowadays. No one would want to read anything longer than 140 characters, and if you have an opinion, you don’t need to write anything: just press the “like” button.
It has also become apparent that in the age of “big data”, the impact of a single blogpost from an not-so-famous blog/blogger is negliable. From an economic perspective, it is questionable if it is worth the time and energy to write a blogpost (not to mention maintain a blog), while there are so many other options for us to invest our time.
So why come back?
For one thing, I like writing. Or to be precise, I like having written something. Maintaining a blogpost is a “commitment device” for me to fight my laziness in thinking and writing. It also helps me organize my many random thoughts that I have generated with in my daily life. Of course, a blog is a platform for me to share with a larger audience what I have encountered and have reflected upon here in the US, and at Harvard in particular. I am very fortunate to be able to listen to the world biggest thinkers, and as the Gospel of Luke famously said, “from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”. Changing the world may be a big dream, but sharing our life here to those who could not afford to make it is definitely something that we can all do. This brings me to my last point, which is to record my learnings and thinkings in my daily life. This blog would be something that I could look back, reflect on, and perhaps laugh at, 20 years later.
So this is my new (academic) year’s resolution. But as any economics student would know, there is significant “time inconsistency” in my promise. This is evident from the very fact that this blog was indeed registered more than a year ago, but has been abandoned every since. And that is how your encouragement and participation would make a difference. Leaving your feedback or comments would be great, but just chekcing back this blog is encouraging enough. This is an intellectual journey that would be interesting only if you are engaged.
Thank you for reading this first and long post. I hope you will find this blog interesting.
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