Anyway, the Blog Is a Medium I Ought to Stop Using

I first came to blogging because I started a blog hoping that, by writing posts, I could monetize through Google AdSense. A few of my students asked me about 'blog monetization,' and the principle is similar to monetizing a YouTube channel: as a post's view count grows, you increase income through ad revenue. But once I became a teacher, I learned that if I earned income from a blog I would have to file a secondary-employment report, and that several conditions came attached; once I realized that, I resolved to stay well clear of all that and began to stop blogging. Since I couldn't monetize, indiscriminately dumping trivial little stories onto the internet didn't suit my temperament.

Another reason is that a blog, in the end, means sharing a written 'diary' on the internet (let's assume a diary edited to be readable). These days it is really the age of video rather than text, and before long I think that video medium will move toward experiential media — or a future will come where, at the press of a button, a memory floods into your head so that reading a post feels like having had the experience, like having watched a vlog. So I keep wondering what I'm doing clinging to a dead medium. Honestly, who reads long writing these days? Of course people read now and then, but do they really read long pieces? Are there really students who, out of some chance curiosity, read all those many posts of mine? That kind of doubt weighs on me, I suppose. Though, thanks to a few students over yesterday and today who broke that doubt, I'll keep posting for a while.

Looking back on the past, writing was actually something I admired in my early college years. I envied people who wrote well. I think about this less now because I write well myself. Even now, very occasionally, when I see someone write a stunning piece, I find myself wondering how they came up with such an expression. That still happens today, but nothing like it did in my freshman year. In any case, when I had just become a college student I really couldn't write, but over the period until around my graduation, when I had become able to write fairly well, I truly practiced through countless exercises to write better. Of course it wasn't only that effort; it was also true that I kept it up because, in the process of writing, I so often experienced my mind being sorted out. When I wrote while struggling, or wrote when I felt stifled, those feelings would loosen and ease.

These days it seems my mind no longer eases even through writing, so I don't know what to do.

It's not because of the students, anyway.