why am i doing this ?

Sometimes it's interesting to think about why I started this blog in the first place. Sure, it's a place to unload thoughts, mentally discuss, and hopefully put a positive note into some other people's lives at the same time.

But it's more than that.

I feel like blogs have evolved a lot over time. I never used to be a fan of them -- and thought they were pretty pointless to be honest. I figured it was just a place for people to randomly vent, complain about what they had to do that day, and basically let out all their steam. I guess some people still use them in that way, and that's just dandy for them, although to be honest I sure won't be stepping anywhere near it.



On the other hand, look at how far blogs have come. You can find blogs on anything -- technology, religion, general daily life. You name it, it exists. Companies have blogs, technical websites have blogs.

All this stuff is great, but now to the main point -- why am I on here? What made me want to start? Why all of a sudden? And why so often? Everyday is a lot to write and it takes a lot of time. If this doesn't sound like something that would interest you, feel free to quit reading right now, because it's basically me tootin' my own horn for a bit.

Well, let's start from the beginning; naturally that's a good place to begin.

I never really liked writing when I was younger. And when I say younger I mean like elementary school. But let's be real, what grade school kid liked writing? It was just getting in the way of me going outside to ride my tricycle. But I guess at some point it began to change.

I've always claimed to hate poetry, but I think what I really hate is analyzing it -- picking apart the poems, in my mind, is not what is supposed to be done. Instead, why can't we just enjoy them for the beautiful words that they are? Needless to say, I love writing poems of my own, or what I like to call, lyrics. This what probably the foremost thing that got me "into writing" per say. At first, I would write all the time. In high school I literally carried around a pad of sticky notes in my back pocket so I didn't have to go back and flip through my notes to find the segmented pieces of songs and choruses strewn across my notes and crammed into the margins.

Fast forward a year or two, and I'm taking AP English Composition as a Junior in high school. Which meant guess what? I was writing an essay a week, sometimes more. They may not be long, but it was a lot of writing. We never really had homework; it was always writing writing writing. One distinct project I remember was a rewrite of the first part of a play where all the characters entered with their own little rhyme. It was really fun to write something new fitting in the right number of syllables to the lines and everything. (We didn't shoot for iambic pentameter, because that's just way too complicated for me to even figure out -- mad props to Shakespeare for being a literary genius). So after all this writing, I guess somewhere along the way i got a little better at it; at least I'd like to think so.

It wasn't until this year at school that I realized I really like it. I just finished taking English 212 this past semester, which was all about American Literature. Not really a writing class; but it was still good, and the teacher was a phenomenal piece of work. We only had 2 essays the entire semester -- but both were pretty much opinionated, write-about-yourself-and-connect-it-to-a-literary-work sort of deal. To me, writing about yourself is easy. Clear your mind, pick one thing to sort out from that tangled mess I call a mind, and write about it. Let the words flow, don't hold back, and the letters practically write themselves on the page. Inspiration hits, you start writing, and bip bop; you got yourself a great essay.

So now I'm at the point I've discovered, hmm I actually kinda like this. By this point I already regularly followed Adam Young's blog, and really liked the way he organized things and just was able to write about them in such a beautiful way. I thought, maybe I should try my hand at this. But I didn't want it to be just a let me complain about my day sort of thing, or even just tell you the stupid things I did that day......

........"Today I ate a piece of toast. Wow, that butter was delicious. Although it's not really butter, it's actually I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. I actually prefer jam on a bagel though. Then I ate lunch, and went bowling. I suck at bowling. I'm good at Wii bowling though. But that's not really bowling".........

.......anyone bored yet? Okay, maybe that was entertaining, but a) it would get old and b) there's no substance. If I was to open a window for a select few people into my mind, I wanted it to be purposeful. I wanted it to have meaning -- and most of all, I wanted it to sort of be a 2 way experience, and get some feedback on the things I talked about. The latter part has yet to evolve, but I will always leave the door open to comments or even if you want to call me up and talk about it, that's cool too. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, you were all brought here for a reason. I respect your opinions and I want you to be a part of me, even if that's from another computer in a completely different place. Whether you decide to interact or not is up to you, but either way I'm glad to see that hit counter run up everyday at the bottom of the screen, because it means actually means people read this thing, people read this compilation of my thoughts and the things that go on my head. Hopefully, you find it interesting, or inspiring, or something along those lines. If I can affect one person each day that I blog, well my job is done. This is not just for my personal benefit of getting thoughts on a page, and I cannot stress that enough.

So there's all these parameters I've set for myself -- but with my writing, the actual words on the page, I just let them flow. I love that I am able to just turn thoughts into a blog in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way. I don't know if everyone can do that, in which case it would be less cool, but either way, I feel blessed to be able to do so, in a somewhat consecutively coherent way. And just being cognizant of the fact that people read this everyday is heartwarming. The reason I write everyday, is because that way people know that every single day, there's something new to read about. There's no guesswork, there's no falling away from it because "oh, so-and-so hasn't written in forever." It's a dependable flow of, well, stuff! I really enjoy writing these things, it's always a great part of my day; it's so relaxing and I can sort of go into my own little world for a bit. I hope that reading it is a bit of a fun and special experience as well, as you get to peer into the window of me for a bit. And on that note, I wish you all a fantastically merry magical Christmas, and will keep you all in my prayers as we approach the New Year.