Muqaddama e Blog.

Misery does love company. Read blogs if you don't believe me.

For the past four years I have spent the majority of my blogging experience limited to my own blog and all things considered, I like writing more than I like trying to read what other people have to say about my life. Logical as that may seem, it's supposedly the opposite for most of the people who want to start blogs. They actually write because they want their miseries to be heard. They want to be repeatedly told how wounded they have been and how the world would stop if they stopped telling people how confused and miserable their truly are. How the fast, crazy, rat race isn't stopping to listen to their tears and pain and it is only this sad, lonely, crying-for-hope domain that will give them the salvation that they truly need. That the cosmic purpose fo blogspot was to encourage the hidden, shy, secret genius within them to emerge and start a revolution with their cries that would change the world.

Do these people lack real, 3D friends or is it just histrionic behavior? Just not happy until it's all about me eh?

Most Pakistani bloggers seem to be suffering from this core dilemma. Talk about me, whine about me, comment about me and of course, tell me what a hero/heroine I am. Then there are those who write about lurv of course. Lost love, imagined love, betrayed love, secret love, perverted love, the works. They actually think the world gives a damn about the people they've lost and the guys they've had crushes on or the women who were out of their leagues and the pseudo relationships they thought they had? Their lives are show cases to random losers who don't have a single clue about their lives, their personalities, their needs, wants and desires, and what is amazing is ... that these imbeciles actually find it ... exhilirating, refreshing, relieving ... to share their deep, personal and meaningful experiences on a place like blogspot which is more of a public forum than a personal space. It's amazing, isn't it? Write something personal, expect people to read it and expect them to say exactly what you want them to say? They really have their own little world, now don't they.

No sympathies though. The world isn't handing out doggie bags. If you're healthy, educated and comfy enough to write a blog, you shouldn't be complaining about things like a lost soul or whatever crap it is you think I'm supposed to shed a bucket of tears about.

The good news is that these decrepit morons aren't the only ones I'm laughing at today. There are plenty of intelligent wordsmiths out there who blog just because they can. It is in their power to string words together with a curve of the imagination and come up with something only they consider brilliant and thus expect a new growth in their garden of grandiosity. How can you possibly get any more self-involved than this? What's even more fascinating about the mindsets of bloggers today, especially the ones who are immensely popular, is that they have a small horde, nay, phalanx of defenders, readers, admirers, who will be there at their constant emergency helpline to be at their rescue. Well, makes sense, if you don't have any real life friends, consider it totally sensible to talk about your private experiences online with strangers, why wouldn't you have keyboard allies. Bravo.

I prefer going back in time and not ever making the decision to blog hop. Because life was simpler. People were less idiotic then (mainly because the number of idiots I knew online was limited to the ones I didn't have to read) and I cared less. But now as some of the writers I have gotten to know, some of them actually write pretty well but waste themselves on stories of blood and gore that never took place, some of them are just plain stupid, whining about women they supposed they loved or imagined romances that never took place, some of them think religion is for dumbasses and find it so cool to mock society and culture and religion just because it's the next best thing to being a real intellectual, some of them like to make sure they're read but cleverly avoid being understood, some of them are just plain childish while some have grown up - but insist on being fixated on a stage so ancient, I'm just going to call them primates. I can't stand whiners in real life either and to find them abundant (and so abundant) online is becoming even more of a pain.

The dearth of good writers amazes me. Writers that surprise me, make me think about what they've written with an indelible impression rather than a sour taste in my mouth. Writers who actually give a damn about the world aren't just obssessed over being non-conformists. Writers who have a flair for charming the reader into going beyond text, and actually visualizing a world of their own, their own existence lives wherein and thus becomes completely permanent in the reader's mind. Writers who are actually witty and funny and have a social and psychological context to their words at the same time. Writers who are powerful and musical in their language and hold a command over English enough to be worthy of the word 'writer'. There are no such people present, I'm afraid, that I am reading these days, except maybe the one or two I regularly look forward to. If I want melodrama, I'll go watch an SRK flick, for crying out loud.

Blogging is becoming a misnomer and soap operas are the theme for writers. How charming is it going to be in the next fifteen years of Pakistani blogging, I can only dare to imagine.