I spent all Sunday afternoon browsing weblogs.
I found out about weblogs first time from “New Yorker” article by Rebecca Mead. After reading it I felt inspired first time for a long time. I started reading weblogs regularly. I became fun of megnut.com and kottke.org I followed the Blogger saga. I stumbled across many interesting entries. I felt like a spy, like a vojeur. I have met people yet I haven't met them. Odd.
I thought about writing my own weblog, but for some reason I was under the impression that it wouldn't work with Mac. That probably was just an excuse of my inner procrastinator. Finally after a few months I went to Blogger site and I had my first blog in five minutes. And that was scary . It was a bit like parachute jumping. Except that I didn't know if I had my parachute on and where I was jumping. And I didn't know why I was jumping.
I wrote a first sentence and my inner censor tapped in. Whom I want to portray? My whining side, my coping hero or my goofy bits. Which side of my personality is presentable? Whom I wanted to be in there? What should I allow myself to reveal and what I should keep to myself? Do I really have something to say? Is it that important?
Am I reaching out, crying for help, or is it simply act of despair caused by loneliness - consequence of the uprooted artificial life in the big city of the first world? Is it willingness to share, plea for understanding, or may be it is new social ritual - attempt to join and win acceptance of new 21st century tribe of screen reading folks. The crowd that eats breathes and breeds somewhere like everybody else but these people also pump their thoughts through a system of wires to that not so easy to imagine space called Internet. So what am I doing and why?

I am not a writer, and I do not write, not a diary, nothing since high school essays. Just shopping lists . I wrote couple of poems at my time, but that was long time ago and not true anymore. I am not systematic. I have problems with commitments. English is not my first language. Writing is hard and so time consuming for me. Probability that I will keep up regular entries is less than slim. Yet I feel strong compulsion. I like stories, and yes, I have one to tell. How? I don't know how. Why? I'm not sure. Is it going to be my story? Of course. Is it going to be about me? I hope to not all of it. But I hope I hope I hope it is going to be.

I grew up in Europe where there isn't an unturned stone. My grandparents lifted all of them from their fields one by one by their hands and build walls or simply stacked them on piles marking the borders of their fields. When I first came to Canada (it was 12 years ago without a day day from today- time goes fast!) I was astonished and by raw wildness of this continent tamed if not raped by proud highways crowned by gas stations and fast food restaurants. And a lot of ugly buildings. There is lots of space here so it still can be wasted. But people are very kind - as I have learned later.
A few months after that my brother and I went to visit his friends in the town 700 km north of Toronto. I was traveling by bus. We were going through kilometers of forest. Very raw and wild kind of forest. Signs on the road near the gas station would warn the drivers that next gas station is over hundred kilometers away so everybody better check if they have enough gas. My mind was trying to cover it all and I tried to spread my imagination and understand how big is that forest. It was hard mental exercise. In Europe patch of forest 20 km wide is considered the vast wilderness. In Canada of the forest spreads from one ocean to the other and I have never seen it. I only had seen a little piece off it and I try to imagine how big it is. It must be big.
The similar thing is happening in my head when I try to imagine the internet. And all the people who read write online. Our society changes and evolves and it becomes quite a new creature every few decades. It grew what are vascular system - roads, and railways, and highways. Now it's growing its nervous system. And that system is being improved with amazing speed. Now information is able to go from individual to individual bypassing central power institutions. And weblogs are next improvement in that process. You do not have to be html savvy. Not many people are. All you need to do is have internet access, write, push a button and post. And let them read, and let them think for themselves if they can. What I know from reading weblogs some of them can.