People sometimes ask me what my blog site is about. My answer is always the same. “Me”. I am under no illusions I write great prose. I don’t believe most of my posts are about anything interesting or noteworthy. In fact, most are crap. But that’s OK. Most of us don’t lead noteworthy or adventurous lives. I’m no different.
I am not a writer. I know that. That you may be reading this now is more a testament to my stubbornness than any creative talent I might possess.
It has been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted anything. In that time I’ve written no fewer than 4 posts, on a wide variety of topics. One was about a recent trip to Stockholm. Another was on growing up poor. I wrote a post about my first few weeks in college. They all suck.
The battle begins as it always does. I sit down, roll my chair close to the edge of my desk, turn on the lamp, grab my pen and stare down at the first page of a pad of paper. Like two samurai facing each other silently in the rain, weapons drawn, we begin.
I have been a computer geek most of my adult life. There are few things in my professional life that a computer couldn’t make better, easier and faster. However, during the holidays late last year, my wife and I stumbled upon a small ink and paper shop in Asheville, NC. On a lark, we each decided to purchase an entry level fountain pen. I immediately fell in love with the concept of writing with this pen. After decades of typing everything, the nostalgia of writing things down with a fountain pen, of taking time to compose my thoughts, became almost an obsession for me. I began handwriting meeting notes again, then I started journaling. All because of this darned, inexpensive fountain pen!
In late 2016 I was struggling a bit. Life was moving along OK, but I felt like I wasn’t doing anything productive or creative. Things were just too mundane, I wasn’t learning anything or challenging myself in any way. I was just going through the motions.