When I first started blogging, I followed quite a few blogs, without much of a strategy. In other words, rather than following blogs that might help me become a professional blogger, I followed blogs I liked, for pure enjoyment, and from which I derived inspiration in the beginning for various posts. As my interests span Architecture, Design, Literature, Writing, Reading, Stories, People, Art, Film, etc., I followed a variety of blogs centered around these topics.

Then I became a little more serious, and realized that 1) I could not spend all day reading other people’s blogs — there would be no time left to write my own, and 2) I needed strategy, as well as content. It’s true that most blogging gurus will tell you that content is king, and it is, but I have so many interests and there are so many things I consider of vital importance, that for me the hardest thing was zeroing in on what I cared about most, or rather, what I wanted to share with others in a way they might find helpful, entertaining, inspiring, engaging and might want to subscribe to so they wouldn’t miss anything. In other words, I wanted to create something other people would care about as well.


So I became much more selective with the blogs I read. I unsubscribed to almost all the blogs I was following, and in a way started over. I chose blogs about blogging, about strategising, and about making your blog into a business. I don’t know whether my two blogs (this one and Life plus Web) will become full blown businesses, but I want them to be professional, to be set up as businesses. Whether they themselves generate income or lead to something that will generate income, in either case they are part of my online business presence. A big part of it.

In essence I did know that the overall “theme” of my blog was stories, and in a roundabout way, I did express this in my “About” page and in my initial posts.  Recently, however, I read a post by Darren Rowse, the author of Problogger, Twitip, Digital Photography School, and a founder of b5media, that made me stop and think. Darren is definitely one of my mentors and gurus.

In this post, which I admit I can’t seem to find right now, Darren spoke about being asked as a young man to write what he would like his obituary to say, many years from now. In other words, how he would like to be remembered. The implication for a blogger is not nearly as dramatic, but can be stated as: what is your blog really about and what would people say about it?

As my regular subscribers and more or less regular casual readers may have noticed, this is the first post in a while. I took a brief hiatus because I was deeply and furiously involved in the setup and organization of a joint online venture with my dear friend and business partner Mario Kluser, an author featured in this very blog, a blogger, and a discerning and clever internet marketer. During the time that he and I have been feverishly setting up our joint venture, and I have therefore not been blogging, I have been meditating and thinking about the blogs, about their importance to me, and their potential importance to my readers. So today I am restating my mission with this blog.

There is no such thing as objective reality. When I was younger I used to fight this notion with all my might. After all, it was an objective reality that my childhood had been miserable, that I left home at a very young age, that I had to fend for myself in this cold, cruel world, and so on and so forth. Or was it? More importantly, does it matter if it was?

The Rashomon quality of life is what makes it so fascinating. For each of us, what we remember is real, our version of what happened is an objective reality, but as we have seen time and time again, no two people experience anything in the same way. This is why the same book can elicit so many different reactions. We each project onto it, interpret it, react to it according to our own personal bias. We see everything through our own personal filter. And yet, so many stories are universal, in the sense that many of us identify with them, see ourselves in the protagonists, recognize them as our own, or partially our own.

I have a quality that I can’t quite name, but something about me induces people to tell me their stories. People open up to me, mostly spontaneously. It’s true that I ask questions, but the key is, I am truly interested. I love people, young and old, rich and poor, of all creeds, colors and extractions. And I can’t get enough of their stories. I can empathize with almost anyone and anything (except extreme violence and hatred). I am keenly aware and convinced of the fact that as humans the things we share greatly outnumber those that separate us. These days everything makes me cry, a mother’s love, the loss of loved ones to war, a child’s gesture, heartstring-tugging commercials, and this is because I am immediately transported to the root of the matter: how much hard work goes into being a mother, the struggle of raising those children knowing they may be killed in warfare, the fragility of the child’s happiness and contentment.

So, stories — this is what this blog is about.

And there is another aspect to this core theme of story. The way, or the medium, through which these stories are told. Each human being is an artist. Whether or not we think of ourselves as artists, that is what we are. We are each the creator of our life’s story, and we each do it in our own way. Those of us who embrace the inner artist and choose to follow the artistic path, however, are the ones who grapple with the impossible task of expressing their unique and special story.

Another thing I am fascinated by is translation. I have been a professional translator my entire life and therefore have had a long time to think about this subject. The truth is that every single utterance, every expression, every telling, is a translation. Each artist chooses the medium in which he feels that what he sees inside his head is most accurately translated for other people to decipher.

So speaking is a translation of our unworded, unformed thoughts.

So is writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, theater, film, and so are the buildings we build, the gardens and landscapes we create, the cities, the interiors… everything is an attempt to translate what we see with our mind’s eye into something other people can see, hear, touch, taste with their physical senses.

The eternal struggle to bring out what we have inside and communicate it to others, this is what I find endlessly fascinating and what I want to share with you, my readers. At this very moment I am attempting to translate my own message so that you can understand it. How am I doing?

I hope you will come with me on my journey, while I explore the many ways in which I and the people I encounter along the way tell our stories, and the story of what it is to be human.

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Welcome to turtle°ink! This is where readers can come to read, writers can come to write, people can come to tell stories and listen or read to stories. We will have podcasts, videos, interviews, excerpts, and more. We are also participants in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and as it is now November 3, 2008, it is day three of NaNo 2008. A very exciting and terrifying time!

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