Yes, I now have a blog.
I’ve resisted doing so until now for several reasons, but for my first blog entry I’d like to write about the one reason that streches back the longest, to before blogs existed.
Should I write?
I’ve been stuck behind two problems that I see with even starting to write. The first problem is that of eventually being embarrassed or troubled or trapped by what I write. I’ve always been kind of happy about the fact that I have no written canon (yes, I said canon, you can laugh now) to bind me to my past opinions. Past opinions that I would now find embarrassing. Past opinions that others would read and use to form their opinions about me NOW, or worse.
Do I have any particularly embarrassing opinions in my past? I don’t think so, but who knows, perhaps I’ve conveniently forgotten them (I do recall voting for Ronald Reagan for president at the age of 18, but I’ve long owned up to that and have already written it off to youthful indescretion). But I guess I now feel like I just need to get my stuff “out there”, if for no other reason than to see what happens. To quote the Butthole Surfers, it’s better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven’t done.
The other problem that I’ve been stuck behind is that I’m a perfectionist, and so I’ll never quite feel that what I write is good enough, and I keep adding and adding to it and never just calling it done and leting it go. Being a perfectionist leads to all sort of other things but maybe I’ll talk more about that some other time. Right now I need to just make a reasonable best effort and press the stupid “post” button.
Back to the concept of being trapped by your own writing, I’ve found it liberating that there’s nothing out there to pin down what I think. But another consideration is that without pinning down your thoughts, you can’t examine them completely, and perhaps develop them further and even discover contradictions or other problems. In this regard writing is therapy, and while I don’t think I need therapy (some would dispute that, I’m sure), I am intrigued about the possibility of learning more about myself by doing this. I’ve been thinking about this for what seems like 20 years, and I guess it’s about time I get to it.
So what am I going to write about? I really don’t know, but if the above is an indicator, it’s going to be somewhat personal. I feel like I know more about what it’s not going to be: I’m not going to passing on the latest blogsphere meme, I’m not going to pontificate about politics, I’m not going to wax eloquent about what I had for breakfast.
Finally, I’m not yet comfortable saying my name here, although I expect that at some point I’ll get around to that.
One thing that prompted me to start up this blog is that recently I’ve done a few pretty cool things, and I want to write about them. So here goes.