After 500 Pots, I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here

This post is number 501.

I've posted 501 times to the world and it is only appropriate, then, that I find myself here, sitting in the dark, with one question:  What's the purpose of my blog?

Recently, I put up a video on YouTube that honestly, I just did for fun.  Blessed to be in a community with women writers, I thought it would be an amusing poke in our feminist bellies to laugh at the ridiculous things people say on the internet.  I posted and I was surprised - and excited - that so many people have seen it.  I'm more than excited that it has caused some discussion about race and tolerance.  

I've received emails and read comment threads where some debate the intention of my project.  Mostly, "What's the point?"  I don't get it.  You're making fun of people, what's the point? What's the point of your blog?

Well, let's see how I can answer that...

First, I am endlessly thankful that people supported and shared the project.  Ya'll rock!

I'm also thankful that even those who DIDN'T like it care enough about the larger picture to engage in thoughtful debate about it.  That's awesome.

Now, here's my other thoughts on the questions of purpose....

I first began breathing a few decades ago and in that time frame have learned a thing or two about my life.  I'm a creator.  

I paint.  Play with words.  Mix some colors.  Make people laugh.  Twist my face around  in expression.

I write.  Poetry and I arm wrestle.  I walk with feminism and wonder how I can contribute.

What's the point?  What's the point of making a comedy about the deeply embedded racism that exists in the corners of new technology?  What's the point in sending a (comical) warning not to give ourselves too much credit just yet?  What's the point of exercising creativity in new and different ways just for one's pleasure?  Does everything have to be check marked with an agenda?  What's the point of creating something that will be disagreed with, misunderstood, and potentially uncomfortable?

Perhaps my point is that it's not about you.  For once, it's about me.  My blog, my words, my creative thinking.  Perhaps it's because marginalized individuals spend an ungodly amount of their lives fighting to get their voice out that when the sound resonates, I'm less concerned about whether it's pleasing, and more about my own ability to tell my truth.

"What are you trying to prove?"  Uh, nothing.  I think the quotes speak for themselves.  

"A few bad apples don't spoil the whole bunch."   Who's talking spoiling?  Shedding light in a dark corner is not equivalent to torching the room.

"What's the point of the project?"  Maybe it's just for a good laugh. Maybe it's up to you to find your meaning, if any.   My point was to create.  The rest is up to you.

I love that people think I'm calling specific people out on the internet to humiliate them.  I have several thoughts on that:

1. Good Lord - have you forgotten that this is THE INTERNET where PEOPLE BLOG UNDER FALSE NAMES?

2. The project is not targeting 11 people.  The project was intended to throw a few absurdities together to take a look at "the dark corners of the feminist blogosphere."  It's not about you.  Stop thinking it's about you.  It's not.  It looks at trends, patterns, and I choose comments for either originality or because it's appeared in so many forms on other blogs.

3. The project was a call for absurdities, not a call for apologies.  I'm not worried about the individuals who said these things.   I'm not worried about what I'm wearing in the video.  I'm not concerned if this is popular.  I'm interested in truthtelling, my truth.  And if what I see stings, then hit your next link on your blogroll.  There are plenty of tutorials that can help you get over your racism.  Here's the secret, though, that they don't tell you in infomercials:  only you can do that.

And so that leads me to the question that I asked myself 500 posts ago:  What's the purpose of my blog?

My purpose of this blog is not very dissimilar from my purpose in life.

To find different mediums of communication to find bits of hope, confidence, and Truth in the world.
To communicate ideas, receive inspiration, witness great writing, memorable events.
To be a part of something larger, something more complex and mysterious than I can imagine.
To give a part of myself to the world in hopes of making it better.
To vent.
To find similar hearts thumping in their chests with a yearning for justice; so loud that they, too, turn to the written word to exhale their activism.
To create, try, offer ideas that could potentially touch another feminist.
To be touched by somone else's work that I can't find in mainstream bookstores or magazines.

To find a community of womyn I could not find offline.
To support independent thought, exercise freedom of expression, question the norm.
To build my own perspective through the careful practice of writing and poetry.
To educate people about (among many things) feminism, the Pinay experience, Filipino diaspora, Asian American attitude, and the beauty of writing for the sake of writing.

Does blogging always do this?

Hells no it doesn't and neither does life guarantee it either.

But, both life and blogging, in their small crashing and receding waves, bring those opportunities in moments.

And that makes it all worth it.