I don't know how to write a blog!

So they tell me blogging is in! It is one way to get your voice heard when it is drowned out in a background of pervasive noise! Or to put it in simpler terms, it is your ticket to your own 15 minutes of fame! Why, they have begun promoting blogging in the media, in print journalism, even blogging websites would rather that you blog! They have brought it to your palms on your mobile phones, "Mobile Blogging" if you will!

But how does it really matter anyway? Does a good blog really make a difference? Can you really affect somebody's life, even if it is, just for a moment, a moment that they might take out of their daily mechanical lives to read what you have to say; to lend an ear to your thoughts!

I don't know! You tell me!

Opinions have always found a mouthpiece one way or another! Don't get me wrong when I say that more than half of the world is opinionated, the rest are indifferent to begin with! But why don't 3 billion voices make a difference, then? Why is it that we still continue to cling to our eternal demons then?

Well, let us just say that albeit half of mankind is opinionated, we are too afraid to make our voices heard fearing retribution in one form or the other!

And then there are those who speak aloud just to invite retribution in one form or other; for in chaos and disarray they thrive! Great that such voices fall on deaf ears most of the time or else we would miss the moments of peace in this eternal continuum of strife!

You are still reading this? I told you I don't know how to write a blog! But if you have stuck around and suffered all this while, might as well see it through, huh!

Freedom of speech is a cliche' to begin with! For the very idea of freedom is very limited! There can be never be a truly neutral voice to begin with! Any opinion expressed has its share of detractors and acceptors! There will always be someone whose sentiments you might hurt when you are expressing something, however impartial, logical and "politically correct" you might try to be! So is one really free to do that in terms of free speech? If you have got the courage and conviction to stand by your view (or simply, if you've the balls to pull it off!)

But it is an oft repeated saying: Your right to stretch your arm stops where the tip of my nose begins!

Does democracy imply freedom of speech? To most people it does! But let us not forget the awful truth that a single sane view might be lost if the majority are insane! For like it or not, that is the inherent core of democracy, that the majority, however mistaken they are in the end, have it their way one way or another!

Nicholas Copernicus was burnt alive on a stake, because the majority "knew" that the universe revolved around the earth; the great Galileo Galilei was excommunicated when his peers in the "scientific community" felt that his heliocentric universe conflicted with their "accepted common view" of a geocentric world!

So much for democracy, huh? Well, we cannot make democracy a scapegoat for our own inertia! But, if there is a poll to choose the best between an army of fools, whom can you pick? (Me, I guess!) At least, you get the power to make that choice, however insignificant that choice might be!

Einstein once said: Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen! Democracy and free speech have always fallen prey to common sense. (Hey! You have psephologists to analyze the impact of this common sense on democracy!) So think again, before you make a judgment call based on this ever accepted common sense!

So, I guess, no check that, I know based (on common sense) that this blog as it is would not fetch me a great readership (God knows I might turn out to be the only reader every week!), but at least it gives me a medium to vent my steam! And that is one benefit of democracy, I am willing to experiment with! Although I haven't an iota of a clue as to what the content matter is going to be! It should rattle your gray matter though, one way or another!

[And before you go booing this piece, let me highlight the fact that I am doing so even as I write this! So I guess, I beat you to this one!]

So you are still reading? I admire your powers of tolerance!

Here is adding to your predicament:

Problem of the Week!

(Now this one is for doctors like me, Sorry! But have a shot anyway!)

When confronted with a patient with a mysterious illness that no one, not even your famous seniors are able to get a clue of; say, due to some sudden stroke of genius, you are able to diagnose it correctly and it is confirmed by your peers and "the lab"! (Wait, here is the treat!) You find out that the strange illness that you Sherlock Holme'd is terminal and that there is pretty much nothing you or any one in the medical fraternity can do about it!

At the end of the day,

do you pat yourself on the back for your deeds, for beating your peers and solving that mystery

or,

do you wish that your hitherto improbable but fatal diagnosis, for the patient's sake, wasn't true in the first place?

Endgame: So does that convince you that I don't know how to write a blog!