Two long but fascinating articles about China and India.

Impasse in India - by Pankaj Mishra in the New York Review of Books. A review of, and analysis of the issues raised in, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future by Martha C. Nussbaum.

Empire of Lies - by Guy Sorman in City Journal. An analysis of China's economic development and communist regime.

I wish I knew where to start or how to begin. There have been a few nights since that May 8th post when I felt an inkling of a desire to seat myself in front of the computer and begin to type up some sort of post that would pass as a summary of my past year and provide some sort of explanation for my prolonged silence.

I haven't been able to, though. For one thing, lately I only seem to get the urge to write late at night before I'm about to go to bed, and that conflicts with the other part of me that doesn't want to let my sleeping schedule swing out of wack from a night of heavy thoughts and lots of typing.

Then there are deeper issues. I've been wondering what the purpose of my online presence is. As my last two somewhat-cryptic posts before my spell of silence indicate, the question of privacy and the net has been on my mind. With the explosion of social networking over the last two years people's social lives have shifted online in a serious way. The online and the real life personas are overlapping more and more. Yet, for me, in a way, being online usually had some element of privacy and escapism (maybe that's not quite the right word?). When I started to blog a few years ago, it was to vent, to toss off the weights that daily life burdened me with, to indulge in all the ridiculous(?) rhetorical flourishes my heart desired, and to be honest with myself in a way I never felt I could.

Even though I wanted to escape the confines of the judgments and whimsical opinions of people I knew in my life off the computer, part of what I sought online was to connect with people. I hoped to type my truth, and I hoped complete strangers would stumble upon my thoughts, have the patience to read them, and then validate me to an extent with a supportive comment. That unrequited human contact meant the world to me at first (and it still does in a way). But after the euphoria of the first couple positive comments began to wear off, I started to feel like I was sinking into a sort of oblivion.

Like the American Dream, Rags-to-Riches stories, the internet is also full of mirages. In this 21st century frontier, I thought that I too could become someone--because it seemed like every other click of a link revealed a fresh-voiced blogger with a loyal and growing following, somebody who made something of themselves online when they couldn't off the net. My "loyal following" of some four or five people here mean the world to me, but after a while into the plateau it felt like coming home to supportive parents--I wouldn't trade it for a thing, but it begs the question, where to go from here?

Then I began to wrestle with the privacy question through the lens of content. I naively envisioned the blog as a tool that would let me write about whatever I wanted. I thought I would be free to express myself almost without limits. Yet I felt stifled, and the twisted thing was that I felt like I was stifling myself. Once I had my fill of ranting about myself, I wanted to turn to political issues, to write about current events and to sound off on controversial topics. I wanted to partake in that great (mostly debased) public debate on the matters of our times, because that debate molds our society and steers it in certain directions, and I felt that task was of utmost importance.

With that in mind, at times I felt that blogging about my personal crises was sort of self indulgent and trivial. If I felt animated enough about a certain topic with public dimensions I should put my effort into writing about it and inviting dialogue. Unfortunately, I held back. I always hesitated because I wasn't sure this was the right place. Mixing posts about my private conflicts with very public, and more formal, essays? Maybe I need another venue to publish non-personal essays, but somewhere into my burnout I lost that enterprising drive.

This is where I start to get really tangled up in my ifs, buts, and maybes.

I still think that there is a value to the writing I've put up here for the past couple years. I believe in the importance of being able to connect to people on a personal level, and sharing my life stories and reading about others' personal challenges has helped me realize that we can form human connections that transcend political, ideological, and religious disagreements. Reading others' personal blogs (and trying hard to suspend criticism) has revealed to me that living through the daily grind can create so much solidarity and commonality among people of such different walks of life. And I've found that withholding sharp judgment is paramount to the success of that task because reading a personal blog is like accepting an invitation into someone else's home, a unique and intimate glimpse into someone else's life. Approaching it that way brings out our respectful sides and from that we can connect and build bridges. And so, if personal blogging can build solidarity and understanding, once the effects ripple out doesn't this lead to public and political ramifications?

Now, if I could only figure out where to start or how to begin.