Back to basics

Sunset colours during a camping trip at Five Rocks, Queensland (2018)

It has been awhile since my last update.

While I could easily dismiss the past few months of inactivity by plucking from the myriad of excuses that are already bubbling to the surface, I will summarise it as this: I've been busy.

It's not that I deliberately chose to walk off the path that I had carved out for myself when I started this blog, other things have just taken priority over writing in recent months. And actually, I think this is unfortunate because I really enjoy writing and expressing my thoughts through this medium. It never fails to give me the space to articulate ideas and opinions that would never otherwise see the light of day. It is the process of putting 'pen to paper' that has the strongest pull on my attention and it is often the case that I surprise myself with how much I had written at the end of it all.

Writing this in this moment makes me reflect upon how I have never approached these blogs with a fully formed storyline all ready to go. I usually just choose a specific memory of an experience to base off and come up with a catchy main heading at the start. Then I just wait and start writing whatever that comes up from the depths.

I think there's something to be said about letting a story emerge from the ether and build itself up piece by piece. Looking at all my previous blogs, there's definitely a consistent theme that cuts through all of them. They have been, in some way or another, insightful reflections of significant experiences or events. Experiences or events that, at the time of occurence, had a significant proportion of 'unseen' meaning compared to what I'm able to glean post reflection.

At the end of the day, as much I would like to deny it, I would have to admit that some of the intent behind these writings is to impart at least some key lessons or advice behind all the ramblings and recollections of my past.

“ What IS consistent from this process are the deeper reflections that I gain out of putting pen to paper, and it's a wonder why I had not gotten to it earlier in my life. ”

Maybe I have indeed been too busy in recent months to take the time to write these blogs, but maybe I was also intimidated by my own expectations of writing something that might be 'worthwhile' for someone else to read. Something 'worthwhile' being a significant event to write about. Maybe I was busy doing things I would consider 'too mundane' or boring to write about. And maybe I shouldn't be making blogs about things that others might consider boring.

But maybe the inherent value of regularly taking the time to check-in with myself through articulating past experiences, creating a storyline and collecting lessons learnt at the end of it all is worth the risk of what I perceive as 'failure'. It would be great that whenever I sit down to write, a great storyline emerges at the end of it but this is Life. It's never going to be perfect. What IS consistent from this process are the deeper reflections that I gain out of putting pen to paper, and it's a wonder why I had not gotten to it earlier in my life.

I don't consider myself a writer. I don't see myself as a potential author of any sort. The thought of writing a whole book from cover to cover just sounds crazy.

At the end of the day, I can say with certainty that I am writing for me. And I hope that as you read this you might give storytelling a try. Creating your own story does not have to be glamorous or intimidating. It does not need to involve late nights and staring at a blank document for hours, hoping for magic to appear. What did it for me was just to start.

200 crappy words a day.

“ The emotionally laden speaker must recount the whole experience, in detail.
Only then can the central narrative, cause and consequence come into focus or consolidate itself.
Only then can the moral of the story be derived”
- Jordan B. Peterson