Four years ago I started this blog. I was a different person then. I was an unfocused writer and a teacher at a turning point in his career. I was lost. I was satisfied with everything, so I didn’t fight for anything. It took a long time for me to get that way. The catalysts were success and, well, Arizona. I managed to accomplish a lot of the long term goals I’d worked out for myself. Couple that with living in a transient/retirement state where very little premium is placed on long term planning and you have a potent recipe for coasting.
I got fat. I put on 25 pound of not-muscle. I dove into video games. I published bad writing. I watched a lot of bad TV. I remembered why I started writing. I remembered why I kept going. I decided I wanted to be smart again. I looked for balance. I rediscovered happiness. I wrote.
Four years is an impossibly short segment of a human life, but for the person living, four years takes on the appearance of eternity. I made lists of possibilities and promises that sometimes came true or fell apart. I learned through all of this that existing–working–writing is meaningless to everyone but the person doing it. Sure, writers can connect with people through their words, and this is often what makes them popular, but if they didn’t connect the writing would still exist, which tells me that the words, the work, even existing is all about the journey an individual takes in order to discover who they are and what they want their purpose to be in life. In that way the 10 minute rule is about me learning about myself and perhaps through that revealing self-identification others can have the opportunity to take a long look at themselves.
Some Thoughts:
- Life is very good.