Once more, into the breach…
… again…
It’s kinda weird finding yourself in the same place you started… more than ten years ago, I planted a little tree in a tiny corner in cyberspace and called it “Pinoy Angst in America”, thanks to the then-fledgeling little service called Blogger.Com. As you can probably tell by the name, I was not the happiest person on the planet during the time. It was just over a year since I moved to America for good (1998), and I was a stranger in a strange land, like that Heinlein book… all the people I knew, all the people I loved, and all the things I liked were left in that tropical conglomeration of islands we all know as the Philippines, and I was depressed like you can’t believe. But instead of experimenting on the sharpest object I can take near my wrist, or delving into a Howard Hughes style seclusion and peeing into that two-liter diet coke bottle I always had in my room, I sought an alternative type of release. Being the Leo that I am, I registered a domain after my nickname and started putting my cynicism, boredom and depression into words…
Thus “Pinoy Angst in America” was born, and in the first couple of months, I treated it as some sort of morbid diary – not full of suicidal thoughts or anything, but rather a cacophony of little demons that I had in my head that sought release. And release them I did, and I am sure that in the first two months I was the only person reading my own weblog (yeah, I still call it “weblog” and not the shortened “blog” word we all use nowadays, the same way I still type http:// when I wanna visit a site). Well, okay, a couple or more other people might have been reading it too – my girlfriend during that time, and a couple of my cousins. But the point is, I didn’t promote it, didn’t mention it, and didn’t even take it too seriously. It is, after all, an exercise in narcissism; a self-absorbed act of enjoying the sound of one’s own voice (or in this case, the sight of one’s own words). I was writing it for myself, and for those who are interested in knowing me, and how much I hated being in America…
Suffice to say, that all changed when the years lost the “1″ and started with a “2″ … I have adjusted to (prolonged) life in the States. I became “institutionalized” to the ways of America, so to speak. And my demeanor also changed as a result. My long dormant dry humor found its voice again, my sarcasm gained more bite, and my cynicism lost its Filipino accent… my weblog changed from “Pinoy Angst in America” into something silly like “Astigmachism”, which was the ultimate exercise in shameless narcissism (for those who are wondering, it stands for “Astig na, Macho pa” which, for the Tagalog challenged readers, means “Wickedly cool with a great body to boot”… neither is true, of course, but then again, not everything you read on the Internet is necessarily an epitomy of veracity, either…
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So anyway, “Astigmachism” took on a life of its own. It started as a weblog on Friendster, then migrated to Multiply, before settling in its own patch of cyber-land independently. And I wrote whatever was on my mind – music, movies, politics, TV shows, sports, cartoons, pornography, and other random musings. My range of topics ranged from dissecting international reaction to 9/11, to ranting about stupid drivers using cellphones in the freeway, to recounting my experience when I sneezed and was feeling myself up in front of a pretty lady coz I was frantically making sure the booger I just expelled wasn’t plastered in front of my shirt…
But anyway (again), that went on for a few years, until a series of unfortunate events happened less than three years ago, one after the other. I’m not gonna bore you with the details (that is, if you’re not already bored enough reading through this diatribe), but it involved radical changes to almost everything – employment, lifestyle, and lovelife. Suffice to say, posting things in my weblog was the least of my concerns.
So I stopped writing… and stayed away from the blogosphere for almost three years, because I felt I had run out of things to write… no wait, that’s not it… I lost my “will” to write, and for someone who loves writing as much as I do, that was like a death knell, the last proverbial nail in the coffin… or so I thought.
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Wait a minute, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing all this stuff, when I’m supposed to be writing about something funny. Something interesting. Something that will make it worth your while. I’m gonna be honest with ya – the first post in any blog is considered a “throw-away” entry, something that probably won’t be read by anyone except myself and a few search spiders. So this is where I am supposed to write about what this weblog is all about. What you can expect to read, and possibly make you come back and read it again. And of course, the irony is, since very few people will probably read this entry, it doesn’t really matter what I write.
Well, let’s just say that if/when I get famous (and I’m crossing my fingers so hard here, it’s almost cramping), and people start asking me how I got into blogging, I can always give them a link to this entry, instead of telling them “Well, sit down sonny, grab a beer and some chips, and let me tell you a story that took place a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
Sure, I can spend my time recounting all the notable entries I had, all the wonderful feedback I got, and all the good things I learned and all the bad things I did… hell, I can even link an article written about me (oh wait, I just did, hehe), but that’ll take too much virtual real estate, and I am sure you would agree that this first entry is turning into the first chapter of War and Peace…
Besides, I didn’t import my old webblog database. It was a hard decision to make, but I decided to start from scratch. What is present is the future, and what is past is prologue… and like any other writer, I’m one of those who groan at the sight of my early written attempts. Have you ever picked up an old picture of yourself – young, hairless, naked, crying, with snot gushing down your flat nose and probably eating your own feces, too – and smiled in nostalgic glee? No, I didn’t think so either…
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So WHY did I revive this weblog? I can think up a very convoluted answer, and use really big words to drown you and either (a) make you think I am an awesome writer, or (b) make you think that I’m so full of shit that you can’t tell if I’m breathing or farting. But the answered can be summed up in one word – serendipitious enlightenment. Okay, so maybe that’s two words, but the point I want to make is that things change, and people change. After two months of self-discovery in a little state called New Mexico, I came back with enough insight to know that I, as a person, suck. And I hate being sucky. And in order not to be sucky, I have to stop being sucky. And that meant I had to change… not overnight, but gradually. And to do that, I have to examine my thoughts, and what better way to do that than to read about them, in my own words.
That doesn’t mean I won’t be an asshole from time to time… there are just some things that take a lot more time (and effort) to change 
James Michener once said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” In order to rewrite something, it has to be written down first. And that’s what I will be doing. This is not the depressing “Pinoy Angst in America”, nor is it the narcissistic “Astigmachism” project. This is just me, just TOLITZ.COM … I have rediscovered my love for writing, and I hope that in the process, I will rediscover my love for everything…
Thank you for sticking around and reading, and I hope you join me once again when I give you something more to read…
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”
~Richard Wright,American Hunger, 1977
