Keeping a Journal

I agreed with Chikirin-san's entry “I Do Read Your Journal” (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Chikirin/20101230).

I myself have kept a journal on the internet for 14 years, including the time before the spread of weblog services. Reading books is my second nature to me from my childhood. I also continue swimming a little. I have worked at my firm for 20 years. Besides three of these I have never had any habit which has continued longer than keeping a journal on the internet.

The volume of my writings until now is huge amount, and it took me a lot of time and energy to write them. It is completely voluntary free of charge and just a hobby. I don't know the reason why I have been keeping a journal for such a long period of time, but it might be mortally important for my living to keep a journal and make it public.

In the beginning I made a website on my firm's PC on the intranet just for fun. My junior fellow Irie-kun's (http://hirie.sakura.ne.jp/) response to my website made me begin to keep journals. He suggested that I made it public on an ISP server. At that time he made a collection of links to similar websites on his own website, and the authors of them and I made loose relations and, we wrote on each others' message boards.

Some of my friends since then are Rena-san (http://blog.livedoor.jp/h_reina/), Yuki-san (http://www.hyuki.com/), the Fake Chemist(http://inchiki-chemist.blog.so-net.ne.jp/) and his wife (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/intsuma), Mr. JK (http://jkism.com/index.html), and Inamoto (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yinamoto he is a friend since undergraduate days). There are many friends who stopped making their websites and disappeared. I kept my website which made at that time (http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~ttakagi/diary/). I feel nostalgia when I see the design of the handmade top page again.

Before then I didn't have a habit of writing something. Of course I wrote by necessity in a school and business, and I liked to do it. But I had never kept journals by myself, and didn't write many letters. Before the spread of the internet some people made a fanzine and the Comiket already had been held. But I have never intended to make a fanzine public and get in the Comiket.

It was important that broadcasting a message on the internet is very cheap and easy. What I want to write is motley a journal, so that I can't get in a circle of a specific hobby. It doesn't suit me to make a fanzine about a special hobby or to get in the Comiket. It is very attractive for me to be able to write what I really want to write by myself on a website. I was lucky to have some readers when I started to make my website. It motivated me to keep a journal, and I think that something which I myself have not realized was drawn from me to keep a journal. So I might have to respond to other people's website and give them motivation to write, but actually I can't do it well.

I use the internet as a useful tool for collecting information on my job and life, but it is more important for me as a tool for sending information on my hobby. I have only a few weblogs which I used to read. I have some followers on Twitter and I usually follow the person who follows me, but I don't read tweets well. It is more interesting and important for me to write my weblog and to tweet by myself.

I am so selfish, but I am happy to have your responses. I want to get them after all. My weblog is just a motley journal, but I hope you will enjoy my weblog for many years to come.