Sigh. My apologies. Ignore the second sentence below. This ended up being a longer post than I intended. About half way through I decided I needed to wrap it up. However, my mind kept going, and my fingers kept typing.
In the end, I accomplished three things. First, I made up for last Sunday. Second, I reinforced my writing habit. Third, I laid out my future goals for this blog. That last one is a good way to keep me accountable. It is like a public promise.
Let us see if I can keep it.
(This is NOT how I want my blog to develop. At this point, I might be the child crying on the floor. I have used this image before. Damn, I had forgotten I had written those words. Rather apropos to tonight's post.)
Even though my Sunday chores are completed, I am going to keep this post short. As usual, I waited until the last minute to focus on this weekly habit. My mind is not in it. Sure, I have a hundred possible topics to explore, and forty-five years of life experience to reveal. My Chrome app already has sixty-six open tabs, each one an article that ignited a reaction in me. Then there are the one hundred links I curated back in July, placing them in my Keep app. Finally, the conversation I had with my parents and two daughters during today's visit could fill a half dozen posts.
However, to do any of those subjects justice would require time and research. It would bother me to present my thoughts unsubstantiated and unfiltered. Just now, while reading a Facebook post on a local community page, my stomach churned as I trudged through ignorant rants. A strong desire to school these people with snark and my own rant shook me. But hate cannot stop resentment nor cure ignorance. And I doubt they shared their emotional tirade in the hopes of inspiring a fruitful exchange of ideas. More importantly, Facebook wants me to fire back with sarcasm and vitriol. And I refuse to feed their algorithm any more than I have, given that I try and spend no more than ten minutes a day on that site.
When the time comes for me to share my thoughts on a controversial topic, I want my words to be meaningful and productive. There are enough people making money off of hateful words and ideas. They twist facts, conjure lies, and hypnotize people with illusions. You can find them on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. Or in the halls of Congress. Also in Governor's mansions. I want no part of it.
Instead, I want to make the world a better place by giving the best of me. And that means making myself better. It also means evaluating my own reactions to other people's actions and words. That requires time and patience. I have to overcome my procrastination, which I am working on daily.
But I also have to transcend a fear of mine. Ultimately, as I share my thoughts publicly, some of my claims and conclusions will be wrong. On social media, making mistakes is intolerable. The masses are obscenely judgmental. You would think that would force people to hesitate when asserting claims, or offering opinions. They would strive for perfection in the arguments, carefully evidence, analyzing their logic.
Yet, the opposite has happened. These tantrums of castigation on social media have inspired people to spew misrepresented facts, bold lies, and constant distractions. And they do so with hateful words and phrases that fuel resentment.
I cannot allow that fear of being wrong in public to silence me, nor encourage me to express myself through vicious rants. If I want to make the world a better place, I have to avoid the easy way out.
Therefore, moving forward, the focus of my weekly checkups will be short, but thoughtful, responses to topics that move me during the week. Some will be political observations and commentary, while others more social. A few will reflect my interests in science, philosophy, art, literature, and history. There will be book and film reviews, again brief in length and depth. Also, links to things I found fascinating.
Then, I hope to turn my Sunday posts into deeper, richer, and better researched expansions of my more complex thoughts and insights. These will include more lifestyle topics, focusing on personal history, my journeys towards self improvement, direct observations of the world around me, and my ridiculous theories about it all.
In the end, I hope all of this effort improves my ability to express myself effectively, and prevents me from joining the overwhelming tide of hate and resentment filling the internet. And I hope it inspires others to do the same.
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