You may or may not wonder, “What has John learned from his experience writing this blog?” That’s a question I often ask myself. My answers, when I choose to give them, vary from day to day. They range from “absolutely nothing” to “I have insights into myself that I might not otherwise have achieved.” And all manner of responses between the two. I think writing this blog has enabled me to think about matters that probably would have remained in my subconscious had I not forced myself to write them.
One might regard the 2153 posts that came before this 2154th as fertilizer for this one, letters and words that supplied the nutrients this one needs to survive. Or, in contrast, they might constitute the inanimate foundation upon which this post is built. But more probably, they exist simply as peculiar precursors to yet more unnecessary banter that plays out in my head, spilling through the wonders of neurotransmitters and muscles and tendons to the keyboard in front of me and then magically appearing on my screen and, if you are reading this, on yours. If you do the math, you will discover that 2154 posts equates to almost six years’ worth of posts at one post per day. But this blog began only four years and two-plus months ago; don’t bother, I’ve done the math for you. I’ve averaged 1.465 posts per day since I started this blog. And and additional seventy-five drafts await either completion or deletion.
Regardless of the numbers and the often mindless banter, writing almost daily and sometimes several times daily has led to an occasional gem, albeit an uncut and unpolished gem, to find its way here among all the grains of sand and piles of unpleasantly aromatic sod. It’s unlikely those gems would have been noticed by the occasional reader. But I have noticed them, if only because they keep appearing in the form of themes that repeat themselves. Those repeating themes tell me something of myself that I need to know. I suppose writing so often naturally leads to such knowledge; simply stumbling upon that knowledge and using it to mold it into transformational knowledge, though, are worlds apart. Finally, I think, I understand that. Despite my self-taunts and self-mocking, even my rambling word-spillage posts tell me things about myself that merit my attention. And now, 2154 posts in, I have it and I will write about it, but not here. This is a place for exploration, not for answers.
