forgotten blogs

i opened my rss reader today after years. i'm guessing those guys who run it assumed i'm never coming back, because when i signed in, everything was unread. i read post after post. some interesting, but mostly mindless. all of them said they were posted today... until i clicked through to the actual site and it showed the real date: 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago.

i wondered to myself, what happened to these blogs? what happened to these bloggers?

did life happen? (that's a joke. life always happens - but people still blogged 10 years ago, while life was happening)

did they find better things to do?

are they numb and bored, sharing facebook post after post, retweeting to hundreds or thousands of bots and a few humans who follow them, adding a word or an emoticon as their only contribution?

are they snapchatting with weird animal eyes and mouths and freaky lights?

are they too busy binge watching their favourite show that just has a new season coming out?

are they keeping up with hundreds of messages that flood their whatsapp and facebook groups, some from friends but mostly strangers, or people who might as well be?

either way, they seem to have found better things to do than good old writing. putting stuff up for posterity, for the world to see.

or maybe, it's because the world isn't interested any more. who but the most deranged of the bunch have the time to scroll through screen after screen of tiny, monospaced text, often in strange colours?

i was going to close my reader and let those guys forget i existed once again.

but then i happened to click through one of the posts.

a dark poem that hit home.

it was written today.

i sent a comment. said hello to the fellow. thanked him for writing something real.

he hasn't forgotten his blog.