It's a milestone of sorts, but I'm just glad I did it: taking the time to mull things over as they happened, jotting down a few notes and ideas along the way, and putting words to the dreams as they took shape in my head. In truth, I'm still not sure what to call it, and any attempt has always seemed incomplete - part blog, part journal, part mindless rambling, part introspective thinking, partly for me and partly for the public realm. It is not ever only one of these things.
I sometimes go back and edit a cringe-worthy sentence I've since outgrown. I sometimes read a line multiple times and remember exactly how I felt when I wrote it on that specific day any number of years ago. I sometimes write an entire post in ten minutes, and other times edit for weeks before deleting it altogether. I sometimes write five in a month, and have at times regrettably skipped a month. Some I felt I couldn't not write, while others I almost couldn't bare to write. Some I think are decent, and some I think are tedious. Some I wrote drunk and some I wrote tired. Sentences have grown more tight and observations at least a little bit more true. There is just no method or blueprint to this thing. It is consistent and it is constantly evolving, and I like that more and more as we creep up to a century mark with an expanding body of work spreading out behind. It makes me wonder what I'll write next and what viewpoints and what victories and what sorrows will make me want to write more.
For now, I don't know why I do it and I do not pompously believe it has any lasting impact, but late at night when I open this up and click back on a random month of my life, it brings me great happiness to see a general progression of things, all the little stepping stones from the world's multiple corners and chance encounters, people who once morphed us, mattered, and now do not. It is my Marco Polo journal, my graduate school thesis, my nobel prize winning speech, my Ted Talk, my manifesto, my last words, and all that is both insignificant and significant in my life. If I died tomorrow I recognize, like most of us must, that there wouldn't be much to show in the grand scheme of things, and absolutely nothing for the history books within a hundred years; I'm at peace with every bit of that really. But I would feel happy knowing I left this little bit of me behind, floating out there somewhere, with no importance placed on the fact that someone or no one will ever find their way here.
Secretly though, I think I do see that happening. I see someone one day reading a page and thinking how much that applies to them. Then I see them getting up, walking out the door, and carrying on about their day.
I sometimes go back and edit a cringe-worthy sentence I've since outgrown. I sometimes read a line multiple times and remember exactly how I felt when I wrote it on that specific day any number of years ago. I sometimes write an entire post in ten minutes, and other times edit for weeks before deleting it altogether. I sometimes write five in a month, and have at times regrettably skipped a month. Some I felt I couldn't not write, while others I almost couldn't bare to write. Some I think are decent, and some I think are tedious. Some I wrote drunk and some I wrote tired. Sentences have grown more tight and observations at least a little bit more true. There is just no method or blueprint to this thing. It is consistent and it is constantly evolving, and I like that more and more as we creep up to a century mark with an expanding body of work spreading out behind. It makes me wonder what I'll write next and what viewpoints and what victories and what sorrows will make me want to write more.
For now, I don't know why I do it and I do not pompously believe it has any lasting impact, but late at night when I open this up and click back on a random month of my life, it brings me great happiness to see a general progression of things, all the little stepping stones from the world's multiple corners and chance encounters, people who once morphed us, mattered, and now do not. It is my Marco Polo journal, my graduate school thesis, my nobel prize winning speech, my Ted Talk, my manifesto, my last words, and all that is both insignificant and significant in my life. If I died tomorrow I recognize, like most of us must, that there wouldn't be much to show in the grand scheme of things, and absolutely nothing for the history books within a hundred years; I'm at peace with every bit of that really. But I would feel happy knowing I left this little bit of me behind, floating out there somewhere, with no importance placed on the fact that someone or no one will ever find their way here.
Secretly though, I think I do see that happening. I see someone one day reading a page and thinking how much that applies to them. Then I see them getting up, walking out the door, and carrying on about their day.
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