Blogging and Pepys's Diary

I was reading a book by Camilla Morton this morning, and there was this mind boggling passage about Samuel Pepys which send me into a deep ponder.

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who rose to be Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, under King James II. He would have been just a mere name in the history of Britain if its not for his......Diary. His diary of 9 years was published and recognized as one of the most important historical documents for the English restoration period which includes his personal revelation and accounts of great events such as Great Plague and Great fire of London (extracted from Wikipedia).

You may click here if you like to have a peek at his diary. Its a good mix of the historical events and happenings in his daily life, all laid out. his relationship, affairs, insecurities, concerns and etc. But what attracted my attention was that Pepys's diary which was supposed to be solely for personal appreciation had become a national monument without knowing by the author himself. I bet if Pepys is still alive today, he will be so surprised to know that his ramblings were read by decades of historians and will be continue to be studied by many many generations to come.

Now it really makes me think, what is the value of the words which i've written, especially in this blog. To be frank i've addressed this question before and when i read back the post "Why did i blog", my feelings were still pretty much the same, but with extra insights i would say.

One thing i've realized throughout the course of blogging is that making your opinion heard has never been so easy. It was my online stream of thoughts, of certain global and religion, issue or even simple life principle issues which i may agree or disagree with. In a way its like an open forum whereby i am the forum manager who have the full authority to express my opinion in public (of course with restriction, who said freedom of speech is allowed in Malaysia??). Before i started to blog, i never knew that i am such an opinionated and dogmatic person. In a sense, blogging has helped me to discover the hidden personalities reside in me.

However the greater value of blogging is that, I've came to realized that i have so much of gratitude in me towards life partly because of this blog which i've keep for a good 5 years now. 5 years may not be long for some people, but in this short period of time, the blog had witnessed my growth and life transition from a naive college girl to the independent lady i am today. All the head over heels crushes and failed relationship i had, the struggles to stay the course when i am alone in the foreign land and the soul searching journey in Scotland and Paris. Without all these records, i would not have appreciated my current position/state the way i am now.

I'm not particularly fretting over whether someone is reading my blog or not, i may not have chance to witness great events in history like Pepys, but i know as long as i keep writing, the blog will continue to stand as the testimony of my life: The day i'm stepping down the isles, the day we owned our home, the day i saw my child through sonogram etc., All of these events and all of the good people i'm gonna meet in future will not just stay isolated in the corner of my memory, but will remain alive and vivid to be share with my love ones or simply for my own reading pleasure.

"keep a diary and one day it will keep you." May West