Blog Post No. 1

An optimist would say it's "been a long time in the making," but the realist would say it's "taken me a long time to make it." Earlier this afternoon, I made a promise to myself that I would not go to bed until I started a blog, and I am keeping that promise. However, that high level of self-commitment did not come right away, in fact, I have been telling myself that I would make a blog for many months now. It's an idea that started slowly, I wanted a place to outlet my photos. I thought the world already had plenty of blogs, and I should try to find something different. But each time I had an idea, I imagined it in the context of a blog. I'm not sure how long it took me to finally decide to start a blog, but it feels like an eternity. Each new idea I have gets warped into the context of a blog, several became brainstorms and first drafts of a blog, but none are ever published. After a while, I began to feel like I was failing. But it felt worse than failure because I wasn't even trying.

Like many humans, I struggle with procrastination. It's something I have known for a long time, and even though I have been taking steps to get around it, I still struggle. For example, tonight, as I prepared thoughts and began to type, I periodically got up to walk to the kitchen or google the name of George Clooney's wife, or worst of all, I scroll mindlessly through instagram. I just can't focus long enough to get something done. I could write for hours about what I do while I'm procrastinating, how I tell myself that any given task can wait. But I suppose that would be a waste of time. 

But in case you're still reading, I will tell you what I hope to do with my blog. My main goal that I hope to achieve is to outlet some of my creativity. Too often I feel that my creativity just sputters out. Photos end up on a hard drive collecting digital dust, and words I write become ink smudges on a forgotten page. I want to be able to find an ending point for things I do, and even if no one ever reads the blog, I'll be happy knowing that the project is done. From this point forward I'll be showing my photos, from recent adventures and from adventures I've had in the past, I'll write about culture and politics, I'll summarize things I learn from books, and I'll rant about nerdy stuff that most people probably won't understand. As I post more I hope my blog will transform into something that people will like, that I'll get better, and that and increasing number of people will listen to what I have to say. But maybe none of that will happen. Maybe it will be the worst blog in the infinite sea of blogs, and my words and images will go neglected in some obscure corner of the internet, forgotten by everyone excpet me. But even that failure would be better than not trying.