Welcome, 2020!

This is my last entry for 2019. What a year it has been! I've traveled far and wide, interacted with patients, caught up with friends, made new ones, read books, watched films and series, ate to my heart's content, swam a number of laps, became more health-conscious, experienced God's greatness and goodness in both the big and small details of life—mine and my family's.

It has been a good year for blogging. Not the greatest year, but I have enjoyed updating this quiet space in the internet. I must admit that there have been days when I forgot the blog even existed. A consequence, I suppose, of my on-going desire to curate my online presence, my love-hate relationship with the idea of sharing my life in this semi-public sphere. Plus I had my notebooks and fountain pens; in such analog materials I would express my emotions, articulate my prayers, and outline my plans.

I resolve to blog more consistently for 2020, not because I have to, but because I want to. Bottled Brain turns 16 years next year. It has been a part of my life. It has done me a lot of good. It has allowed me to interact with people in ways I wouldn't have been able to, if not for internet. Blogging stimulates my brain. Typing, editing html codes, posting photographs—these keep my ideas fired up and constitute an essential part of my thinking process. In a sense, writing about other things keeps my technical writing sharp and focused. It has been an avenue to encourage others, to point others to worthwhile links, books, films. Maturity naturally brings with it a stronger tendency for introspection, for self-censorship. I must overcome, in a sense, my tendency to polish everything to perfection: this, too, is the beauty of the blog. Things don't have to be perfect. Forgive the occasional typo, or the missing preposition, or the poor sentence construction.

This is the beauty of having my own URL—I don't have to bother everyone with what I write, I don't have to announce to the entire world that I posted, say, a photo of a flower in my mother's garden (though I have been inclined to do that).

I wish for you and your families a blessed 2020. Thanks for reading and keeping me company.