I have been wondering about what to do with the blog for a while now. As the title indicates, I have been blogging for almost six and a half years on this site, though I have been silent for the greater part of the last year or so. I have been fortunate enough to have well over half-a-million views. I have received a couple of awards for medical bloggers, which remains a small (and shrinking!) online niche. It all sounds pretty fun and engaging, however, for the past year and a bit, I seem to have lost the voice and motivation for blogging altogether.
When I look back, this blog seems to have been a constant companion over some really tough and complex times. I started blogging a little after completing my internship, when I was working as a Junior Resident in Anesthesiology and Critical Care. Soon after quitting that, I re-entered the rut preparing for the horrific PG Entrance exams. I subsequently managed to get a rank, and much against the wishes of well-wishers and friends, chose to study Community Medicine in Delhi University. I found, lost, and found (once and for all!) love. I found myself, I lost myself. I saw friends getting married – I rejoiced. I saw friends getting divorced and breaking up – I shared in their misery. I bought my first house. I experienced the crushing fear a mortgage brings with it. I traveled. I saw sights and sites that I have always longed to experience. I got mugged in Paris. I trudged through bitterly cold mornings while shopping on the streets of Amsterdam. I spent an hour staring at the sculptures of Michelangelo in the Louvre. I walked the jungles of Johannesburg and the shrubberies of Kruger. I lived my dreams… I broke my old dreams to construct newer ones from the debris. I worked with only 11 hours of sleep in a week. I found an amazing job… I quit my amazing job. I found yet another amazing job!
And all through this time, I have had Scepticemia, my online alter ego, by my side. However, this past year, I have tried dabbling with blogging, trying to find my voice again. Although it felt a bit like cheating, I tried to rediscover the passion for writing and enquiry which sparked off this blog in the first place. I tried writing on different blogs – Zoonoticus, Infectionscapes, MedUtopia, to name a few… and all the while, I felt like I was still a bit lost, my voice still throttled, my writing (typing) stilted and staccato, my thoughts astray.
I am no longer the youngster that stared at the world with unabashed hope and optimism; my vision has now been tinged with the cynicism that is brought by experience. I am still grappling with an imposed silence on my writing – I have hardly written for the pleasure of randomly writing in the past year. I have restrained and restricted my writing to peer reviewed work… bread and butter stuff.
And now, as I look back on the six hundred posts, written over six loving years, I feel like no matter how I change, this blog is a living document that reflects me to myself. I guess the reason why I ended up failing to find a new online home for my thoughts was because my heart and brain were always tied to this corner of the wide webverse. I guess, if I am to write, I should be writing here.
So, in my new quest to rediscover my voice, redefine my writing, and reiterate my skepticism, I want to embrace scepticemia all over again, and re-commit to writing more about my thoughts and analyses here. Here’s to starting all over once again – it is something that I have to do in my personal and professional lives as well – and here’s to hoping that the long silence of the past year is broken, and the lost blog is found and revived.
Godspeed!
Good decision! If you had stopped one paragraph short, I’d have been thrown into despair. Please do write!
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