Blogging for the Reluctant (read as busy) Blogger

Well…I have been found out! Judgment day has come. I am a communications manager and today is the day the world, or at least my small corner of the world, finds out that I am not one….. at least not a 21^st Century blogging-vlogging-podcasting-instagramming-sharing communicator.    

I do not blog.

What is a blog?

I am glad some of you ask. Because if you are like me, you would have been dreading the word and the exercise of blogging like you dread a visit to dentist. [Note to dental practitioners: Please don’t take this personally. I know people who love their dentists and look forward to their regular check-ups like a pilgrimage. My sister is one of them.]

A blog is: 1) a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer; and is also the contents of such a site; 2) a regular feature appearing as part of an online publication that typically relates to a particular topic and consists of articles and personal commentary by one or more authors (source: Merriam-Webster).

Why do I not blog?

Let me list the number of reasons (or excuses, if I am honest)…this is where I can actually vocalise and have lots to share. For one, my job takes up most of my working hours and it sometimes encroaches into my after-office hours. I support communications for the marine programme in a non-governmental organization (NGO). And if you are reading this, you know you are in one of WWF-Malaysia’s blogs, Mameng Sunshine Stories.

A second reason is after years of strictly adhering to the rule to be objective and to report only facts that have been validated and ground-truthed, these values have become so ingrained in me that writing about unchecked and whimsical topics goes against my second nature.

The third is a personal reason. While I am happy to talk about the job that occupies most of my conscious moments, about my colleagues and what we do for marine conservation, I am quite reluctant to share my personal opinion on these topics. It is just a preference not to attach an emotion or opinion that is my own to the issues that affect the environment around us and the animals and plants associated within.

We live in a current generation with the desire for instant gratification and need for real-time social media tweets and Instagram posts. Made possible through ubiquitous mobile technology, we the-sometimes-reluctant audience are bombarded with far too many personal and often-times very private thoughts.

So…with these reasons, is it any wonder that I suffer from what a dear friend calls ‘paralysis by analysis’? I have been reluctant to blog and vocalise my inner thoughts…until today.  

I have to publish a blog or perish

Back to the present exercise, which is to write a blog as part of the Science Journalism Training Workshop at the Academy of Science Malaysia. We were given one hour to not only write a blog but to publish it…online!

Now that I have put thoughts down in black and white, it is not as painful as previously imagined in a solo debate in my mind. I can gingerly say, with what may be fleeting confidence, I have come out of the experience slightly emboldened to perhaps blog another piece before the paralysis sets in. No trauma and no post-blog blues yet, and certainly nothing earth-shattering.    

I take satisfaction and pleasure to nudge other reluctant blogger-wannabes to just try it – Blog!

Angela Lim ~ Full-time conservationist, Part-time conversationalist