It has been around... 4-5 months since I last blogged. No real reasons why I stopped blogging, I was just plain lazy.
But then again, it's not just me who stopped regular blogging, other than the really well known bloggers like Xiaxue, most bloggers I know around me either stopped blogging, or simply resorted to others means like tweeting or facebooking. Emotions and feelings can be expressed in many other ways and blogging has simply gone out of trend.
Blogging started getting popular when I was in my secondary school days. Blogspot, myspace etc were really hot at that time and people just stalked other people's blog. Yes, you young twerps borned in the 90s, we stalked people in www.blogspot.com, not www.facebook.com.
Then thanks to more prolific bloggers like Xiaxue (sorry I kept using her, because she is indeed the more well-known bloggers in my time) and Maddock, we blog with a sense of expressing our thoughts in our own style. In a sense this was also how this blog came about, a station for Takahina to express his own thoughts.
Now, blogging is outdated. Not to blame anyone but I guess blogging has lost it's support. All bloggers who blog, would in a sense hope people would read and comment, if not for no reason we would write it out in a public space for everyone to see. If we didn't want to, it would have been a private blog. So with a lack of support, it's not easy to see why normal bloggers like you and me to become lazy to update their blogs.
I can say I'm lazy, at the same time I can also say there is no people supporting blogging, so I'm not writing. In fact, most of my blog posts were seen on Facebook where I linked my updates in this blog to my profile. So seriously, why do I even bother posting on thetruetakahina.blogspot.com? I might as well just update on Facebook.com
Link this to another incident which I spotted online. Inch Chua, a local musician speaking out her mind on the lack of local support for musicians.
Blogging is a small thing, it doesn't involve that much commitment and money. Just some time of yours here and there. But music is different and I can understand her frustration in Singapore.
This is the reason why sub-cultures can't last in Singapore: The lack of support. Be it blogging, cosplay, music, arts, sports etc. None of them can last if it's not being supported. I'm not blaming the government on this one, I'm blaming Singaporeans on this one. Being a local musician, I feel so very dejected many times to receive the lack of support from my friends and family. I have already blogged before on this issue about arts not being able to grow and flourish in Singapore due to lack of support and I can't emphasize enough the important of people's mentality to change in Singapore. Whatever I want to say and rant about, Miss Inch Chua has very aptly wrote all about it.
If I could, I would love to play my drums everyday and be a professional musician. But like so many other local musicians out there we simply either forgo or postpone that dream of ours.
Few friends of mine have managed to go in their own way such as:
Elyzia
and Edwin Toh
Elyzia kept pushing and pushing to get to where they are today as a indie Singapore Chinese band and performs on a regular basis in gigs in various countries.
Edwin is a good friend of mine whom is studying music overseas in hope to further his musician career.
However, not to pour cold water to them and those who are already trying very hard in this... After this stint in your music path, where could you go? How many bands or artist wannabes here managed to make it big? Unless we resort to commercialism, we really can't manage to make it big. People like Stef Sun no doubt is good, but she's one of those few far in between who managed to steer along with the path of marketing. Go away from that and you will eventually be missing the mark.
However much, that is music. Let talk about something else.
I've recently attended some investment talk and 1 thing that the people told me there is that, never to spread and tell everyone about what you may be doing. True enough, because for whatever things you are doing there will be resistance from people along the way. If people support you that will be great... however most of the time you will realize the resistance that affect you the most would be the 2 person who gave birth to you.
Singapore may be a financial hub and one of the only few countries left in the world with a 3A credit rating, which makes us a big shot. 15% of Singaporeans are millionaires in their own right, 40% of the people out there would have done investments but didn't succeed anywhere. The other 45% are people who would tell you not to invest because of all the heresay they have heard.
Don't talk about the 15%, but the other 85%. 40% of the people will tell a newcoming investor their own experiences and dissuade you from doing this or that. That can affect you a lot. An investment that may not be good for them, may be good for you due to your risk profile, so no one in their own rights can tell you what to do, because ultimately they won't know whether it's the best choice for you. The only way for you to find that out would be for you to experiment it before you will know. That's the risk that comes along.
45% of those who don't invest are worse. They just dissuade you from doing it whole... which affects a newcomer Investor's mentality a lot. They may not know it but words spoke can affect people's thinking to a great effect. Just a "huh, why you do that??" from a parent can make you doubt your actions and in the end stop it all. The lack of support from people around you affects you to a big extent, an extent that most of us won't realize at all.
That is the reason why most of the 15% won't tell people much about how they do it, because support is lacking and wrong decisions may be made from that aura eluded by people.
So must it be that, for us to gain support the only way is to do as the social norm does? I truly hope that is not the case.
Social norms will only keep on manifesting itself to remain as such. A social norm that doesn't change will only be outdated when faced with the situations that happen globally. For a world right now that is so open with almost every issue under the world, the society should be receptive for things that is beyond the norm rather than being resistant. For a country like Singapore to remain so negative towards culture, arts etc, anything that isn't a 9-5pm job and education beyond those that we know of, we are seriously outdated. We may be improving, for someone like Inch Chua to make a post about her emotions on music is already a sign that we have people like her in Singapore who is willing to step out of the norm.
Inch Chua made the right move of going overseas. This is also a reason why so many people are emigrating out of Singapore. For Takahina, I want to do things that I want to do but should I go overseas? I don't know seriously. Should I even continue blogging now that there's almost no one else I know who blogs regularly? I don't know...
