Getting distracted

I've had two more article published on The Earth Times, and I'm still happy about it. But I am getting a bit guilty about getting distracted from my mission: a portal/homepage for Filipino catholic families.

An old friend of the family's who just passed away gave a rather formal speech for a simple family gathering last year. He mentioned how he would visit with my grandfather and my aunts because he enjoyed the intellectual discussions.

This resonated with me because I had been reflecting on the idea for several months since a conversation I had with poet ands artist Noel Beduya. What I took from that talk was his desire -- need -- for intelligent intercourse -- not the green variety!

I realized that I was blessed because when I was growing up I had this with my parents, siblings and friends. When I got married and had children, I always had my husband and my children to talk to and argue with, which partly made up for the fact that I had isolated myself from friends.

But I also realized that a lot of people don't have that anymore, even in their own families. I had a student, a very pretty and talented high school senior, who told me that she was sad because when she got home from school she couldn't talk to her mother because she (the mother) would be busy watching Korean telenovelas.

Even sadder, of course, are the many children growing up while their  parents work abroad. A male friend of mine narrated how, when he had just started working abroad, his wife and two young boys would go online everyday to say hello and chat. As the days went by though, they would be online less often, and after several months, he would only get to chat with them once a week.

And there are some families who communicate even less often.

So the idea is a homepage for every family that uses the best features available for websites so that families can share and communicate and be together, even if only virtually. There's Facebook of course, but that's got too many things going on ... too much distraction.

So that's my mission from which I am getting distracted.

But it'll have to be realized on a part-time basis because I do have to keep a steady income source to make sure my own family can keep sharing, communicating, and being together.

Writing about it here, I hope, will mark the movement of the concept out of my mind and onto the Web.