a new direction

I don't know why I ever started to write this blog. It is probably because I wanted a record of my travels -- where I went, for how long, what I thought about it. Yet, now my life is a lot more amorphous and part of what is keeping me from writing is that fact that I have so much to say, so many observations and thoughts and I don't know how to catch this journal up in a way that fits into neat little categories.

So, to overcome this block, I am going to list all of the things I wish I had written about and then move on from them. After that, this blog will take a new direction.

Fall 2010:
pumpkins, bike rides, halloween, uchicago

Winter 2010:
first eating contest, backyard fire, cooking, christmas, babysitting, snow month, art, gardening class at chicago botanic garden

winter 2010: organic farming in Wisconsin, chopping wood, killing/dressing/eating rabbit, hockey on a frozen lake

Spring 2011: Costa Rica, engagement, cloud forest, tropical paradise, monkeys, sloths, wildlife, volcanoes, soccer with children, new friends

Spring 2011: new growth, new garden

early summer 2011: New York, killing the "bu," Ithaca organic gardens/homes

summer 2011: gardening, wedding showers, bachelor(ette) parties, moving, saying goodbye

late summer 2011: driving across the country, badlands, idaho, washington, starting graduate school

Fall 2011: brett's wedding in boulder, pat's trip to yellowstone, washington apple picking, olympic, seattle, morris berman, thanksgiving in california, colin's music, new friends, old friends, the future

Winter 2011: our wedding, chicago, friends, family, love

along with all the usual themes: peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, baby boomers, the suburbs, the industrial revolution, hunter gatherers, farming, philosophy.

So, since the nomadic period of my life that revolves around exploration has ended and the period of planning and settling has begun, this blog will now focus on materials which I am consuming daily that inform my choices of how/where/with whom to live my life. Before, the places I went informed and educated me. Now, it will be sources of information that are less experiential and more text-based that teach me, and this blog will be a place where I can keep a record of what I think of what I'm seeing in the world.

I think it's important to state here that I am still unsure of where I stand on the format of a blog anyway. Isn't it just the mouthpiece for a generation of narcissists? Isn't it a place where we see our own reflection and somehow that makes us feel we exist? I think it can be, in some cases.

Yet, I do think there are two reasons for blogs that are not (as) narcissistic. The first is for a personal journal, which would be private. It is just an electronic diary that is kept for your own purposes in which you can write any stupid shit you desire because your only audience is you.

The second is to write a blog that is somewhere between opinion and journalism. This can be public or private, but the main purpose is to display the world (or aspects of the world such as art or literature or news) through the lens of this particular writer. We all know that writing is good not just because of style, but because of content. We also all know that writers have biases. The purpose of this second non-narcissistic blog is to both keep track of one's own viewpoints on things that matter and to maybe inform a readership of certain aspects of reality through the eyes of the writer.

I hope to make this blog less and less personal and more the second kind of blog -- bearing in mind of course that the personal influences the public. It is hard to see the fine line drawn between these kinds of blogs and the sloppy, selfish trash that is put out by most people. I hope to keep conscious of this distinction and to try not to veer too far into the abyss of mirrors and self-indulgence. Here we go again.