I have known, for a long time, that this blog is essentially for a readership of one: me. Oh sure, I put it up here in public because it’s my oblique way of putting myself out there in the world – but I don’t actually tell anyone about it. I just do it.
In my own mind, it has become primarily about three things:
- Discipline. It’s no small feat to write something and make it public every day. I’m now approaching 1000 of these posts (930 to be exact), so I am confident I can go on forever if I so choose. This does not mean, however, that they are all good. When you are cranking out something everyday, they can’t all be winners – but you’ve got to be willing to fail in order to win.
- Achieving clarity of thinking. Trust me, nothing makes muddled thinking more glaringly obvious than writing it down and making it public. It forces me to solidify my ideas and hopefully express them with clarity.
- Becoming comfortable expressing myself with language. This one was unforeseen, and quite frankly may have been the ultimate purpose of starting this almost three years ago – even though I didn’t understand it at the time. It is certainly why I spontaneously began writing fiction last year – something I had never planned to do. It’s weird how these things happen…
But make no mistake, this isn’t easy to do everyday. Some days I just feel like I’ve got nothing, and I’m sure it sounds like it. But because discipline is one of my directives, I cannot waiver. I have to write something, so I give it my best, and hope that tomorrows post will be better.
The nice thing about writing and not being concerned about anyone else reading it is the freedom it gives you to fail. So what if they’re not all great? When I am dead, this thing will be up here on the web ready for the inevitable wandering and perhaps lost AI to gobble up in an effort to better understand what makes humans human.
So to whoever or whatever may or may not stumble across this thing, I say this: I hope you enjoy any of this half as much as I did writing it.
Be safe out there.