"To Blog or not to Blog"- by Speedy
Keeping in touch- "To Blog or not to Blog, that is the question"
Mahendra "Speedy" Gonsalkorale
A version of this was posted in January 2016, and I felt it might be helpful to revisit it. Come on, my friends, release those thoughts lurking in the background and share them with us!
The Blog was born in 2011, that is 14 years ago! The proud Father was the late Lucky.
I have been wondering for some time why our Blog is not as
popular as I was hoping it would be. If we consider how interactive it is, by
looking at numbers who comment, then we do fall short by quite a margin. The
total number of persons who have commented is below 20 and of these there are now
less than 8 very active people.
The questions I am posing are these.
- Why is the comment rate low?
- How can we get more people involved?
- How many of our Batch colleagues actually use it?
- Does the Blog serve a purpose? Is the time and effort made by Lucky so unselfishly, worth it?
- Is it worth resending a questionnaire by email to get the answers?
We did one in 2020. There were 30 responses from 74 sent out, a rate of 40.5%, which was bigger than I expected with only 3 in Category (a) Hardly ever visited the Blog. - I posted the findings in the Blog and here is the Link:- https://colombomedgrads1962.blogspot.com/2020/11/speedygroup-interview-about-our-blog.html#comment-form ).
Or is this a wider issue about how school friends or
University friends keep in touch? We have moved in different directions and we
have built up new friendships and we may feel a need to move on putting our
past behind us, especially if that part of our past is something we want to
forget. We have formed groupings within us based on where we live and our own
interests. Our circles have widened and those who we consider worth keeping in
touch, we still do but the criterion has to be much wider than “he/she was my
batch colleague”. The bonds that we had then have to be very strong for them to
survive the ravages of time. We are pleasant when we see each other, but life
has taken us in different directions, and we have moved on. We may not feel the
need to rekindle the relationship.
Then, there is the question of priorities. There is never enough time to do what we wish to do, and looking at the Blog may not be a priority.
Like a good restaurant, if we enjoy the experience, we will come
back!
There are other possible factors such as familiarity with
computers and the Internet. I still have friends who get their children to set
up their TV, check their email!
How much a person uses anything depends a lot on how useful
(enjoyable) it is to that person. The Blog may be an avenue to display our talents (music/poetry with me and
writing/painting with ND and painting with Chira). It may be a pleasant way to
spend time reminiscing. It may rekindle old friendships. It gives us an
opportunity to rejoice at the success of colleagues (e.g. Lama), it may be a
medium to recall with pleasure a time we were together at a critical phase of
our life, it can be a way to show our appreciation to our Teachers, it could be
a medium to enlist help for a good cause connected with our Medical Faculty. It
has also reminded us of our mortality with the growing number of obituary
notices.
I have posed many questions and indicated why the Blog still has much to offer. I am a firm believer in putting the past
behind and moving on. There is no time like the present moment but the present
moment could be enriched by learning from the past; but avoid dwelling in the past pondering on the “what might have been”. That kind of reflection, the “what
might have been”, is pointless, corrosive, and a recipe for discontent.
But to me, what is important in the final analysis is not
how frequently we keep in touch but the ability to pick up and continue from
where we left. I felt that very much at the last Batch Reunion when I met
colleagues after so many years.
So come on my friends, pull out your fingers and start
typing on your keyboards either as a comment, or as an email to one of us. As
for me, I enjoy reading the Blog and contributing to it and shall continue to
do so.
Please send anything you like to post, to me by email if
you are uncomfortable about writing a new post, send me a draft and I am only too happy to edit and publish it, or
publish it as it is if that is your wish.
In conclusion, I am proud of our Batch, a Batch of achievers and an example to emulate.
