Paths Not Taken, Part 1

I love reading novels and watching shows or movies that involve parallel worlds (sometimes called alternate universes). Here, the characters visit or view a universe where their counterparts made a different decision in the past making their life so much different in the present. If the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, it could be possible that somewhere in another universe there is a version of me with a totally different life. I often think of these what-if scenarios in my head. What if I did this instead of that? What if this happened instead of that? Well… here’s one.

The news blogger

He may have discovered video games in high school but got bored with them after a while. He joined the staff of the school paper by the suggestion his English teacher. His contributions were mostly reports on school events. He haven’t tried doing interviews that time as he was shy. Was he shy or actually have a mild social anxiety?

Even if he had motion sickness and haven’t tried living on his own, he studied in Baguio City away from home and took up Mass Communication. (One to two hour bus ride to or from home is far by his standards.) It was probably his course load and requirements that made him lose his social anxiety. After graduation, he applied for a job as a reporter for a radio station in San Fernando. The pay was not much but it was a start. As his passion was writing, he also sent his reports on national broadsheets.

Early 2000s, he started writing a news blog. It is mostly covering La Union. He then started monetizing the blog when more people started reading the site. When he started earning more from his blog and article submissions, he quit his job on the radio and made blogging full time. It was a risk but he took it anyway. His his gamble paid off.

His news blog had a good number of followers and readers when it was noticed by a national broadsheet looking to expand their paper’s influence on the internet. He was contacted by the paper and offered him to be a part of the paper’s online website. As the pay was better, he accepted. He made a good influence on the direction of the paper’s website. It was the right fit for him. As of now, he is content but thinking of possibility of further expansion.

And we’re back

This is part one of a series of posts about my what-ifs. This is also the start of “blog every day in April 2015”: #beda2015. I hope I can do this for the whole month. Crossing fingers.

Featured image by Christian Schirm/Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC0 1.0.

Again

23998675_13619c991fI always fancy myself as a writer. You know, someone who writes stuff. The problem is, I haven’t written anything for a long (emphasis on the “long”) time. My mind can be full of words, ideas, but when these are swimming in head I always tell myself that I don’t have time to sit down and write. Yes, I procrastinate. Or sometimes when I do have time to write, I can’t seem to force the ideas buried inside my mind to just flow out. Yes, I blame writer’s block. Or is it?

I started seeing myself that I can actually write some nice stuff after my first writing assignment of my essay class way back college. On the first day of the class, the teacher distributed index cards (if I remember correctly) containing topics for an essay to be written on the spot. The topic that I got was something about being sixty years old. I had to write that essay in less that an hour so I decided to make it short and not so serious, in short, I need to exaggerate. I don’t remember the exact words but I put there me being on retirement, a big company, a distinguished record, and with a nice home. I ended the essay with, “I am sixty and I am OK.”

The next day of the class, all essays are returned except for a few ones. I haven’t received mine. The teacher said she will read the chosen essays in class before returning it. “Uh, oh,” I thought. After reading mine, she asked if I want to join the school publication. I said, I don’t have time. See first paragraph. But after getting some good marks on my essays on that class I eventually joined the school publication. Maybe I can share more of that next time. Years after graduating though I never written something substantial but I still fancy myself as a writer.

In the early days of social networking (the era of Friendster and onwards), I started writing some little stuff (just short pieces) sporadically. I posted and cross-posted them on my blogs, in Multiply, LiveJournal, and i.ph. Some were personal but most of fandom related in nature. On the non-fandom writings, I usually posted those as a form of emotional catharsis (which a friend pointed out). Then, the well of inspiration dried out. The writing muse left. I reverted back to my usual reasons of not writing. See first paragraph.

So, here I am. With a new blog. Go, figure. I need to do this. I need myself and other people see me not just by my day job or just my geeky hobbies. If I wanted to see myself as a writer, I had to write. Write not just sporadically. Write not only about fandom. Write not only as an emotional catharsis. Write not only because I am inspired. I just have to write stuff. I hope I can sustain this for days to come. For this, I need to push myself. If I stall, please don’t hesitate to slap me with a trout.

Top image: “Keyboard” by Peter Harrison (cheetah100) is licensed under CC BY 2.0.