Once upon a time, I had a blog.
I didn’t really think much of it at the time, other than it was a place for me to post my thoughts about, well, anything. I posted about my feelings on movies, on restaurants, on the beginnings of text messaging, complaints about turn signals, and my college adventures. I didn’t really have an idea of why I was posting, but it felt right to do so. It felt right to have some kind of record of what I was up to.
As the years went on, I did a lot with that blog, but as Facebook and Twitter took over I found myself wanting almost to disengage from it all. If all my thoughts were just going to end up on social media anyway, was my blog just redundant? Was it just old thinking?
Recently though, I came across a section in Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon, where he mentioned something that’s stuck with me:
“Your influences,” he writes. “are all worth sharing because they clue people in to who you are and what you do—sometimes even more than your own work.”
I’ve been thinking about that since, and considering how often I still feel compelled to share random things with my friends and family and complete strangers and everyone else…
I’ve been thinking about the things that inspire me, about the concepts, and topics, and stories, and activities that I find engaging, and I wonder to myself – maybe someone else may find that stuff interesting too. Or maybe it’ll just do me some good to get the things out of my head and onto a page somewhere.
But then I start thinking – is anyone going to read this crap? I mean, yeah, it’s my personal thing, but maybe no one else cares one way or the other. Maybe this is just a waste of time for a near-40-year-old to spend his time.
But then I look at all my old notebooks, and my journals, and then read a bit through even my my old blog… And I guess someone found it interesting at one point. Maybe someone will again.
Let’s take another chance at once upon a time.
So here we go once more.
I have a blog.
– K