My hosting plan came up for renewal and I have to admit I had to consider whether I wanted to pay $50 for another year. Not because my host (A Small Orange) isn’t good, in fact they are excellent. No, it’s because I can’t get myself motivated to write anymore.

When I analyze why I’m no longer motivated I come up with a variety of reasons.

Lack of content isn’t one of the reasons. I have more than enough ideas, but there are reasons that keep me from writing about the content that comes to me.

1) Negativity. I realize that a lot of what I find relevant about life here is very negative. I think much of that comes from the fact that so many things are different, or done differently here than what I grew up with. Much of it makes no sense to me. I can’t figure out the reasoning, and the excuses I get don’t seem to justify. Not that it matters, because they aren’t going to change for me (or you).

I was going to write an article called “Culture Excuse”, because I feel that is often used to justify the lack of basic courtesy here. The Philippines isn’t alone in that, but I decided not to write it because it would appear too negative.

No one wants to read a bunch of negative articles about life, and it’s not really any fun to write them.

2) Fear. That’s probably much too strong a word, maybe concern is better, but with the passage of the Cybercrime bill which can take anything I say anywhere on the internet and be considered liable, the animosity of many filipinos towards foreigners (heightened and made more public by incidences that occur with Americans), and the way expats attack each other (lawsuits, deportation requests, etc.) all make me very nervous about writing anything that could be construed as controversial. Even that last sentence is enough to upset many people I suspect.

3) Lack of direction. I guess these are all related really. I have things I wish to share, I just don’t feel I can express them here anymore. Many articles could be considered offensive, controversial, inappropriate, etc.

I’ve considered making a new site, that had nothing to do with this one, and using a different name. But frankly I feel that foreigners are being watched very closely here, and I’ve no reason to add extra scrutiny to my life just for the sake of sharing a few things that I’ve encountered here.

Maybe I’ll get excited about writing generic articles about Samal or wattage testers again. Maybe it’s just an adjustment phase I’m going through. But for now that’s the reason for my lack of output.

If anyone cared to know ;-)

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