It’s been more than two years since I’ve actively maintained this website. In that time my life has changed in many ways and yet that core need to write still remains strong, though repressed. I’m hesitant to start a blog and at the same time emboldened to try it. Why is that?
I started my web presence over 10 years ago, long before blogs existed; it’s hard for me to believe how much has happened in my life since then. I was younger, adventurous and was much less inhibited than I have become. Now we live in a world where one is judged professionally and privately by what any given search engine has to say about them, a world where we are more compartmentalized and controlled than ever before. One’s employer can dictate what one may say, do, to some extent *think* even when not on the clock (I’m hopeful my employer is better than that but you never truly know). And to lack a defined employer (i.e., become an independent contractor) is equally risky when basic health insurance is impossible to come by for many without a group plan. It is in so many ways a Faustian bargain we make every day, when we choose to become a cog in the of the Engine of Industry whilst implicitly (often unknowingly) relinquishing the freedoms we take as a birthright. I chose to make that bargain over 8 years ago when I left college and entered the workforce, and it’s been killing me ever since.
Since I couldn’t realistically quit working (short of returning to college, something I’ve frequently thought of doing) I wrote what I could, but gradually grew disillusioned and jaded. Over the last few years I’ve let this site go fallow and my creativity run dry. Not to say that my writing was the best you’d ever find, certainly not at first, but I am my own worst critic. Many of my readers found it interesting and inspiring but I found the fear of some negative impact on my “professional” side to be too much. While there was no particular reason to worry I gradually became convinced it was prudent. So, a little over a year ago I took down all the writing and pretty much closed up shop.
At that time I was working hard to lose some extra weight I’d picked up over the years (working bizarre and varied hours and eating too much sugar from the old vending machines). I’ve struggled with weight for over 15 years, starting back when I worked for a particular pizza chain early in college. Sitting on my ass eating pizza and driving around all night for 40+ hours a week, taking a full class load and not sleeping well added up to a lot of weight and a lot of stress. Over the years it became apparent that major stressors translated into major weight gain for me. Not good. Most recently I transferred within my company to a new position, one which may or may not work out but which appeared to have more of a future than the old one. We’ll see, but at the end of the day it’s just more stress and more pounds. As part of this blog I hope to report my progress as I work to finally get my weight down and shed both the stressors and the pounds.
When I was younger I felt I had a Destiny with that capital D. Not in a particularly grandiose sort of way, just a sense of meaning and purpose, a feeling that I would have a good influence on at least part of the world through my writing and/or my actions. Maybe it’d be a revolutionary book, or a new way of thinking. Maybe it’d be simply touching the lives of a few others in some small but important ways. Whatever that Destiny might have been I lost sight of it. That loss has predicated and amplified all the other stressors in my life. My sense of meaning and purpose is the thread I must find and pull back into play. To live like I’ve been living is to live on auto-pilot, and treads the edge of hopelessness (I know better than to give up, but this is a long way from the person I once was).
To summarize, then: I’m upset that I’m overweight and that I’ve made so little progress with that, pissed at how stagnant my life has become in so many ways, sad that I have lost my direction and purpose in life, unhappy with where my career is(n’t) going and worried that the very act of stating my opinions publicly will endanger my livelihood. Having lost my voice out of fear and apathy has led to this state of affairs. I’ve been tied up in knots for too long and that needs to change, so today I begin by writing this. I hope you’ll drop by here from time to time and share with me this journey as I organize my thoughts and work to change and improve my life for the better.
