untitled (first post)

I tend to fall into a habit of dreaming up big plans or making big promises and coming up with even more ideas before I make time to follow through with any of them. Inside my head is a dream world comprised of multiple realities where in each of them I am an established, fully-realized and successful person. In the case of this writing specifically, success means having finally followed through and produced something for people to read. Another one of my points of focus for this year has been accountability, and follow-through seems to feed into that.

When approaching a project, I feel a need to have a fully fleshed-out concept or solution that translates completely and immediately into the final product. In my experience, this approach has meant always going straight from start to finish, always forcing the smoothest but quickest transitions, and in as few takes as possible. In recent years I haven’t written anything outside of required essays for what few college courses I’ve taken, for technical manuals at work, or on the rare occasion, an impassioned rant on social media. Outside of these, I’ve been conditioned to think that if I can’t make an idea fit this single-take approach, or at least get it written out quickly, then it’s not a good idea or worth writing out. The one element of (formal) writing I’ve been conveniently forgetting about is outlining – where ideas come first, bullets and structure come next, and forming everything into coherent flowing sentences comes last.

In one of the courses I’ve taken before, one writing model that I was taught was basing an entire essay on an introduction that consisted of two pieces of information, each either old or new. To the professor that taught this course, the most innovative or effective (also best-graded) essays had introductions that consisted of at least one piece of new information. This was difficult to achieve when a majority of the essays we were writing were analyses of readings that we did – a lot of cut-and-dry work with little room for interpretation, and all based on historical facts. According to this professor, the most memorable if not only information that was always guaranteed to be new came from personal perspectives or experiences. This was also difficult to incorporate, given this was an academic setting where the use of “I” is frowned upon. I haven’t existed in an academic setting in over a year, but I still feel compelled to follow academic models to come across as interesting but still respectable.

There’s a phenomenon that I’ve seen people on the internet mention before where in an age of technology like today, people feel like they’re constantly living in the public eye. In my experience, I’ve felt that the above idea of respectability is assigned by people to other people in an instant. In an age of technology like today, I feel like that instant is all we think we have, but it’s also all we take for ourselves and give to others.

In large part, this idea of instant respectability shaped this mindset I’ve held where nothing that can fit a single take is worthwhile. Writings from my original personal blog site also all held this recurring theme of apologizing upfront for not being interesting enough for me to garner the view/read counts or notifications I was hoping for – foreshadowing of this single-take standard to which I’ve been holding myself. Whether it was recent strides in my self-image and personal mental health or just age, in the past couple months I felt a switch flip somewhere and I made this connection where suddenly I felt like I finally had permission to have feelings and ideas. I am working to remember that it’s not that having feelings or ideas is a good or bad thing, but rather how those feelings or ideas are put into action that affect people – which I know already is another writing for another day.

The biggest issue that has, for so long, kept me from sitting down and writing is that I just don’t have a proper workspace. That’s not to say that I don’t have space to use, because even in the house of six people that I live in, there is still somehow no shortage of space. It might just be the same sort of energy behind having so much to do and wanting to do all of it during the day, only to forget everything immediately upon walking in the door and to head straight to bed or the couch. For as long as I can remember, especially in recent years, my routine coming home has been changing into pajamas straight away and watching YouTube and Netflix on my phone in bed. This has been a hard habit to shake, considering my bed is the one space that I feel is most dedicated only to me.

There was a time where I had my own apartment. I was gainfully employed and had my bills in order. Thinking back to it now, I don’t think I ever did anything productive while living there aside from eat and sleep. That apartment came to an end after leaving the first job I got here in Anchorage, and I fell behind on everything. It’s a real blessing that I have family in town that was gracious enough to take me back in when I needed it. Two jobs later, I’m finally back on track to financial recovery. I still can’t shake this feeling that I don’t have any space that is completely my own, aside from my car – but the absolute last thing I ever want to do in any setting is come across as ungrateful.

I could go on for ages about the kind of content and energy I want to put out into the world – especially after the kind(s) of person I was, the things I did, and the experiences I had in my past – but I don’t know just how deep or far back to go. The single-take concept I mentioned earlier also conditioned me to fit as much background explanation into one post as possible so context is always provided. For now, I’m just going to remind myself that this first writing is really just a warm-up run to get back into practice and leave it at that.

One idea I keep coming back to when writing, thinking about writing, or really in anything that I do, is that the word “unceremonious” is not in my vocabulary. Obviously, it is, but it’s definitely not my style. The way I see it, I have 30 years of silence to make up for, and 30 years of existence and 30 years of ideas to put into words; and I’m just now realizing that I can do that – and I plan to, one long-winded post at a time.