Faded color

Drones all around me,
The color of life becomes faded,
The glimpses of color so few,
Voices around me whispering so silently.

Their dreams seem so far flung,
I reach out for the bright colors,
The stares like knives cutting,
Their emotions feel so cold.

Lined up on a one way path,
Actions almost the same,
Fear a fuel for their conformity,
I try to pull one away.

Screams so frantic like shattering glass,
Fragile minds that are color blind,
Change seems like a nightmare,
She struggles to get back to the line.

Grabbing her by her cold wrist,
Warming her with my words,
Adding color to her eyes,
At the end of it she cries.
-Faded color

Conformity, to society’s culture, to one’s social structure and surroundings, we all conform to a certain extent, but are we drones to it all? I try to break free, not to follow the pressures of conforming. Blogging is part of this current culture we live in, to write your thoughts online, in that sense I am conforming to culture, but where does conforming stop and individualism start? What is blogging? Is it a sort of online dairy, of what one thinks feels or what they did with their life?

But then again, it’s popular to show the world your blog, to become linked with other people’s blog, having people view it and so on so forth. But what are the reasons’ for your blog? To tell the world your life’s story? Rant about how you feel about something? Try to become more popular? To tell a story that sends a message out to the world on what might be happening? What needs to be changed?

There are so many reason why people blog. To the point, I ask myself, why do I blog? It’s partly to express my views on issues or to post my work on poetry or stories. Do I have a lot to tell? I wonder that myself, blogging to me is like a conversation with one’s self, thinking and contemplating.

Zeng Jinyan is the online blogger who fought a war of words against the secret police, telling about her experiences from the oppressive activities of the Beijing secret police which was blocked by China and she was harassed and intimated for doing so. She used blogging as the medium to make the truth become her power to reach out to the world to let it know what is happening.

Blogging isn’t simply just words, it allows people to put their emotion into it where others can feel it too. And nowadays, even flash videos are integrated into blog pages, using mediums like you tube or Google video. The online flash video revolution meeting the blogging revolution, v-blogging. The world is rapidly changing. Years ago when I had a look at blogging for the first time, it had just words. Now with RSS feeds, flash videos, blogs which are viewed thousands of times in a single day, so much has changed.

The day and age of self advertising had become part of our culture. And many youths begin to follow it. To seek to become popular in a culture, to reach out the world and make their mark. When I was in secondary school, friendster and my space was a way of defining one’s popularity, the no. of friends and views of one’s profile made an impact on society. Pictures and profiles, it became part of society, to not follow it, would make you seem like an outcast. This is where the pressures of conforming come along. I must say, I did conform to that pressure, most of my friends did. For some, it became a popularity contest.

Before long, the world which seemed to become vibrant and alive, full of color from this new culture soon became blurred, and the color soon seemed to fade. Most individuals simply blogged what happened in their life daily, not really talking about issues that happened around them or in the world, no true contemplating about their life and the world. It was simply just stating what was going on in their life, such as their activities and that was it, less and less people truly wrote. A blog that was a dairy, a form of reflection become a report, a report to the world on what you were doing.

I intend to contemplate, to dream to write and blog.

Thoughts drawn from a river,
A diamond bracelet constricts her hand,
She sheds a tear of blood,
And breaths deep before the plunge.

Filled by flowing emotions,
The chains of her past begin to pull her down,
Her screams make no sound,
Drowning in her crushed dreams.

Awoken from this nightmare,
She kicks off the sands of past,
Taking off the bracelet,
She walks off holding his hand
-The diamond bracelet