Wondering what to write for a first blog post always seems so overwhelming. If you are writing for a specific audience then you need to think about who that audience is and what kind of things that they might want to know about, or read about, or even think about. The audience has expectations of what they want your blog to be. They have rules about what your blog can or cannot contain. Because your blog is essentially a brand to be marketed to the masses and everyone wants to have an opinion about what you think, feel, say, do, believe, and literally everything in between. In writing for an audience, there are things that you have to consider, and avenues that you have to mentally explore before you can put the words on the page. "Will they like this? Won't they? I can't write about my trip to Kentucky on the same blog I write about books on. I can't mentally spill my guts on this blog because this is not a mental health space. Insert eye rolls here please.
It is for these reasons, among several others, that I've decided not to write with an audience in mind. I think that, to me, the value of having a blog is a place to put my thoughts, contemplations, and opinions out there. Like an electronic journal but for me to actually process through thoughts, feelings, or emotions, whatever it feels like need to get out. I want to write about my trips on the same blog I spill out my feelings; everything in one place feels like the best way to feel like a "whole" person. I don't understand the need for classifying and categorizing humanity and the things that make us human. We have to take the good with the bad and learn to love and embrace, not only ourselves but these things in others as well. Being human is beautiful, and we should all appreciate so much more than we do without boundaries, groups, or genres.
So, in essence, this blog is about absolutely nothing, but also absolutely everything, all at once.
Today, as I watched some of the animals in my care interacting in the 40,000-gallon aquarium that they live in, I watched the way that they interacted together. Small groups of fishes living in closer proximity to other species than they normally would in the wild even though the native habitat is essentially the same. They are forced into this nano-world with all of these other animals, and they did not choose it. I thought to myself about the interactions that they had on a day-to-day basis. It made me think about things that I do and people I encounter on a daily basis. Then I thought about choice. How many of the people in my life that I encounter on a day-to-day basis did I actually choose? Not my coworkers or my employer (as individuals)- how every wonderful they are; it wasn't my choice that those specific individuals enter my life. It is, naturally my choice to work there and stay there. I certainly did not choose the people at the gas station, or the grocery store. I didn't choose my immediate family (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) Maybe and argument could be made about my children...but are they really a choice? Of course, it was my choice to have children and raise them in my household. But as individuals? Not really- I didn't get to say, "I want a son who has xyz characteristics" etc. If eugenics was a thing maybe there would be more of an argument for that, but it was not available at the time that I chose to have my children. So, you kind of get stuck with the hand you are dealt.
The only people in your life that you actively get to choose are the friends that you keep in your inner circle and any potential partners that you want to have access to your life. That's a big deal then, right? To have actual choice be so limited to this particular aspect of your life. And how much this is overlooked? It wasn't until recently that I really put thought into what I would want to see from an adult partner and what a healthy adult relationship would look like to me.
I thought about my current partner and my thoughts were, "I want to be with someone who chooses me every day." And then, I thought about how I would honestly get to know that I would be "chosen" every day. Or how do I know that that person chooses me every day for that matter? If it is so "obvious" when you have feelings of "love" than why isn't choice equally as obvious? Maybe chose is just the illusion of free will. I like to think, for me, it's in the little things that I do every day to show that I am thinking about someone, or I care for them. For this particular person, we connect through music. So, every day, regardless of how we are feeling and how each other's mind set is, I make an effort to do two things: 1) add a song to our shared Spotify Playlist and 2) Send an affirming emoji or affirmation of some kind. I feel like that is me showing that I choose this person. Maybe it isn't actually that, maybe it isn't real at all. Maybe it's just an illusion of choice implemented on us by our own minds in an effort to make us feel like we have any control at all, because our bodies are actually ruled by parasites. But I digress into science fiction.
At the moment my mind is a manic ball of thoughts and topics; contemplations and ways that we can be contained. Or things that try to contain us rather. I do not want to be contained. I want to feel like I am limitless. I want to feel like I can do anything, achieve anything, and be completely connected to the moment and to the world; free of all of societal norms and expectations. And sometimes, I do feel like that. Those days are my very favorite days. But everyday can't feel like that, right? Because it would take away all of the things that make those feelings so special, because there wouldn't be a contrast.
I think I'll end this post with a poem that I wrote recently.
Simple, Magic
Every day I find a little bit of magic.
It’s in the way the wind blows a breeze
Across my face.
Or in the first sip of coffee
From my favorite mug.
Sometimes, it’s in the whispers
Of children.
Other times I find it in your laugh
Or smile
Or the way you look at me.
And time stands still just for a moment,
In these moments.
It’s magic.
--AJR
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