Someone asked me recently why I blog—it’s an intrusion to privacy, it’s says very little if you exclude juicy personal details, and most of all it’s an obligation that “controls your life”, he said.

Now, I’ve sworn never to write self-referential philosophical blahblah about, of all things, blogging, but really, why do we blog?

Speaking just for myself, as someone who doesn’t blog for profit, work, a coherent agenda or life-revealing attention, this space is simply my space.

It’s a notepad, it’s a drafting board, it’s a place for organising a semblance of thought.

It isn’t about contributing to the cacophony online. Goodness knows we have enough blogs as it is.

But writing for a living, sometimes you realise what a blunt axe deadlines can be to so-called creativity and expression; when speed is first priority and work comes bearing down, something’s got to give—often, it’s quality.

You can call it freedom of expression or any of that new-agey mumbo jumbo, but in this space, what I write is separate from work. And able to be elevated above writing that belongs to any corporation.

I’d like to think that that’s what makes most people begin blogging. Like the top tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs perhaps where, all other needs below, the writer writing may be existing in that space of self-actualization for just those precious moments.

The dried fig: proof that I will eat anything left long enough on my desk.

So putrid that not even the pests came for it after a day of leaving it out.