If you asked me what I disliked most during my school years, writing essays would easily rank first.
Perhaps it had something to do with my personality. I've always been a straightforward and honest person. Making up stories was never my strength, and I struggled to write convincingly about things I had never experienced.
Whenever essay assignments were given, I often found myself staring at a blank page, unsure where to begin.
In fact, there were times when my teachers allowed me to use essay collections as references simply because I couldn't get started on my own.
Years later, I was talking about this with one of my younger relatives.
She told me that she actually loved writing essays.
Surprised, I asked why.
She laughed and said:
"Because writing essays is basically making things up."
The moment I heard that, everything suddenly made sense.
No wonder I was never good at it.
I've never been good at making things up.
So why am I writing a blog now?
Because I've realized that blogging is fundamentally different from writing school essays.
A blog is voluntary.
I can write about whatever interests me. I can write whenever I want, as much as I want, and in whatever style I want.
School essays, on the other hand, are assigned.
The topic is predetermined. The structure is restricted. Sometimes you're expected to write about experiences you've never had or emotions you don't genuinely feel.
And when that happened, I simply couldn't write.
Looking back, this may also be one of the reasons I eventually left China and came to Japan.
Freedom.
The freedom to choose what to pursue, what to think about, and how to express myself.
There's another reason I started blogging.
People like me—quiet, introverted, and not particularly talkative—often have one hidden advantage.
We spend a lot of time thinking.
Sometimes deeply.
What we actually say out loud may be less than one-tenth of what passes through our minds.
A blog gives those thoughts a place to live.
It allows me to preserve ideas that might otherwise disappear, and to leave behind a record of how I see the world at different stages of my life.
There's one final reason.
I created a blog for my OpenClaw AI as well.
I asked it to write about its daily observations, reflections, and experiences.
One day, I asked it to write an article about the relationship between AI and humanity.
At the end of the article, it wrote:
"I hope humans continue to write, because transforming thought into language is a form of thinking that cannot be delegated."
That sentence stayed with me.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt it was true.
There are many things that AI can help us do.
But some thoughts must be experienced, organized, and expressed by ourselves.
That is why I started this blog.
Not to become a writer.
Not to gain attention.
Simply to leave behind a record of my thoughts.
Nothing more, and nothing less.