“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”
Those who frequent this blog have probably noticed the many changes. In addition to changing the title (in homage to a famous Naipaul line), I have also dropped the Pan-Africanist colors and general layout for something quite different. In order to explain exactly what drove me to change the blog, I must explain exactly why I started blogging in the first place.
When I first started blogging in late 2010, it was mainly as a way to avoid inundating social media accounts with excessively long posts or links. Discussions with friends who had been blogging for years inspired me to start what had been, initially, my personal online soapbox. The blog's changing nature and seemingly random subject matter reflects that early approach.
After sharing essays, music posts, rants, book reviews, and my own rather quirky humor, or lack thereof, I realized this blog has actually become one of my main hobbies. Time has also passed rapidly, and I have lost interest in the old layout, color scheme, and rather puerile title. The new title, The World Is What It Is, is more mature and less self-centered or silly, in my humble opinion. The idea struck me after reading Patrick French's well-written but disturbing biography of Naipaul. While I disagree with Naipaul on countless topics, I find his fiction engaging, containing smooth prose, possessing comic genius (in his Trinidad novels, at least), thought-provoking, and sometimes pessimistic, yet encompassing the contradictions of the postcolonial modern world around us. What better line encapsulates that then Naipaul's famous quote from A Bend in the River?
Returning to the subject of the blog, however, I plan on finding some sort of color scheme and layout that works. For now, it will remain as it is with some minor changes along the way. Who knows, perhaps in another couple of years, I will have to change the title again.
