Milestones

As I approach my Blogger six-month aniversary (in two weeks), my 100th post (this is 82 or 83) and my hit counter inches ever closer to 3,000 visits (sometime tomorrow), I find that there are times when I haven't got much to say. Those that know me know that nothing could be further from the truth and, to be perfectly honest, I have to agree. Nonetheless, I often feel an obligation to post something, yet I don't have anything pressing to say. In other words, the well is dry. The following is what happens when I just start throwing words down and let something develope. Is it genious? Dribble? Somewhere in between? You tell me...


I started blogging last December to explore a new venue for my writing. It was during a five-week break in between semesters at school and I simply was not done riding the wave of momentum that the fall semester had created. In a very real way, I missed the exploratory nature of the written word. It was and is a craft that I apparently have a knack for and I had finally come to a point where writing was not work. It is still the same today; I write not for money (yet), but because I enjoy the brainstorming, the word assemblage, the final product… and of course, the feedback.

Those five weeks therefore were an exercise in patience. It took a very, very long time to embrace this skill and even longer to be able to nurture it to the point where I may be able to capitalize on it. OK, so I’ve made that decision – taken that leap into the unknown and unfamiliar, now the last thing I want to do is… wait. Blogging eased that downtime. It was a forum that had everything I needed to hold me over and I didn’t even know what that was. Among other things, it provided an audience, a sort of peer review group. That, in turn, gave me motivation – to write.

The first entries were relatively easy. The first two were about me and where I am in life. Easy writing - according to my freshman comp professor, the easiest subject to write about is oneself. It didn’t make much sense to me at first, but is much clearer now. Easy though it may be, it can be challenging in other respects. It is by definition introspective and as such may reveal some things that I’d rather not know. Furthermore, those introspections have a tendency to creep into all waking (and some non-waking) moments of my life, manifesting themselves as epiphanies, revelations and intuitions. It can all be very inconvenient sometimes.

I feel as though I miss more than I get. I can’t begin to relate the wonderful ideas… the sudden flashes of brilliance (or the obvious) that I have been too busy or too lazy to document. Then there are the times that, even when the moment is right, I can’t find the words. Yes… it’s all about the words. You see, when I write, I am trying to convey not just ideas, but feeling, color, vision, emotion, wonder, empathy, pain – so much more than just little pixels of light or geometric splotches of ink have any business portraying. Most of the time I can get across how I feel it when I read my words – and that’s a start, but it’s when I can’t even feel what I feel when reading my own thoughts that my frustration is at its peak.

If this all reads like what a very scrambled mind must look like, then I have, in part, done my job as a writer. It is not complete, however, unless I have also related the growth that comes with exploring ones own thoughts, one’s soul. It should account for the search for truth in the written word; the understanding of the vast degree of difference of individual perception and the unity that the linkage of language – written language gives those perceptions. It should be a window into my life not to show what I know, but rather what I don’t.

It is with these words I share that which is me with you – and that is really all I have that’s worth anything anyway.