Dec 15, 2010

[Blogosphere] Revisiting The Coconuter

More than four years ago I wrote a piece on the Coconuter, which is sort of a travel blog written by Filipino-American David Poarch. At the time his goal of finding his proverbial "golden coconut" seemed nicely idealistic and reminded me a lot about other internet successes such as The Million Dollar Homepage and One Red Paperclip.


The Coconuter Banner


I recently received an email from him - yes, I actually wrote to him back then - and it was a quick note about him being back in the country and all. I wasn't expecting it and thus I ended revisiting his site to see what's what.

This whole things has me wondering if I should try to get back in the habit of featuring and reviewing blogs again. I used to do a lot of them while writing for Pinoy Gay Blogs back in the day. It was an interesting experience and I got to meet a couple of new blogging friends although in hindsight I'm probably only really in touch with just one of them.

For the unaware, The Coconuter is a travelogue blog that follows the struggles of David, a young man who decided to leave the US and live a simpler life in the Philippines. He was featured on an episode of Magmamahal Kapamilya and since then I've only really heard about him from the occasional photo post over on Manila Gay Guy, given the fact that he is sort of cute and he has a propensity of posting shirtless photos of himself.

Initially I was pretty skeptical about his goals in life as a blogger and as an individual. I think we were all speculating that he was fated to get a TV deal and that endorsers would love to get their hands on him. This is probably still true, but surprisingly he's decided to hold strong and avoid that sort of thing in pursuit of a much simpler life.

To be fair, it's not like he's been 100% living on his own. In the course of the past few years, he also went back to the United States for a while since eventually his limited funds ended or something like that - I wasn't following the site too closely during that period. He has gone back and forth and he's even stayed in Manila for a while as opposed to the more idyllic provinces.


The Coconuter Sample


He's also grown a lot, I'd like to think. He got a girl pregnant and married her but eventually left his family to pursue his dream again. Some would call this highly irresponsible but I don't have all the pieces so I don't want to pass judgement. After all, I barely know the guy and who am I to say whether or not he's doing the right thing, right? Despite that little blemish, his writings speak of a very introspective young man and his struggle with his own dreams and aspirations. He's very eloquent and he writes about a wide variety of topics, provided he is able to come online at all.

Posts remain highly infrequent given he doesn't exactly have steady access to the internet. He's also back in Zambales living a much simpler life although not nearly as depressive or "suffering" as some of his much earlier posts inadvertently ended up sounding like. He does have a separate personal blog that I haven't tried venturing into since it requires registration, but I just might do so. And he still posts photos of his various travels with the aid of whoever is with him, including his odd propensity for taking his clothes off every time he's near water. I wear, it's like he's inspired by Bear Grylls at times.

The busy bee in me can't figure out why he just does't take a job like the rest of us instead of this weird escapist venture into the provinces. But at the same time, I can't help but respect his pursuit of a life with a sense of meaning fitting for him. If anything, you have to respect his personal drive and his dedication to a dream. You can't help but marvel at his idealism, even if you don't necessarily want to follow in his footsteps.

What's next for David? How should I know - I'm not writing his life story after all. But in case you wanted to read about a guy who's pretty much given up on the traditional definitions of success in our highly urbanized life, then perhaps this will be a good read for you.

And please, stop saying you find him inspiring when all you do is wait for new shirtless photos to drool over. That's really kind of lame. Oh wait - I mean it's REALLY lame. Get a life freaks!
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1 comment:

  1. I'm also a follower of the Coconuter ever since he was featured in Rated K. I guess that was in 2008. I also can't figure out why he doesn't want to live the life of city dwellers since he has a talent for technology (he's very good with computers and web hosting, blogging, etc). I guess, he really wants to live a simple life. I hope to meet him soon. And yes, he's cute :)

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