This is Hard...

So, I have been going back and forth over the past few weeks, trying to sit down and dedicate 30 min or so to writing a blog entry. Something witty, semi-personal, and very relatable, to get my metaphoric feet wet. I mean, there was a point in my past when every single memorable moment in my life was recorded somewhere, whether on my blogspot, my livejournal, my deadjournal (does anyone else remember that?), or my blogger. And even before the internet became a significant part of my life, I had the good ol' fashion bound paper journal to turn to. Basically, ever since I knew who Doug Funnie was (quite possibly even before), I was always obsessed with the idea of recording my thoughts, so that I could have a record to refer back to, of all of the high and low points in my life. My memory can only immediately recall back to so many things, and I want to make sure that, when I am older, I can refer back to something, some previous experience that I had, to share either with my present day self or someone else. And maybe, just maybe, someone will be able to get something from it.

If you look at something like Letters to a Young Poet, or The Diary of Anne Frank (and please don't think that I am trying to imply that ANYTHING that I write will ever come CLOSE to being as influential or essential as what they wrote, but then again, you never know....), I can almost guarantee that these people never had any idea how many people would be impacted by their words and thoughts. In fact, they might have never even thought that anyone besides them was ever going to see it at all. And that's just it: no one ever knows what a profound impact something that they say or think may possibly have on another person, or even a group of people. That's the thing about words, you never know when your words will prove to be the catalyst to something much greater than you could even imagine possible.

That is why I want to get back into writing. Too often I think that the unknown reach of my words is what keeps me from doing it more. From one side, I think that at times I don’t write something because I feel that it will not resonate with anyone else, or it may even seem trivial and insignificant to me some day in the future, so what's the point in writing it down? From the other side, I am afraid of the potentially limitless power of my words. I see words like sounds in a cavernous mine, riding the waves of echoes and creeping into dark, unexplored corners, affecting things that I did not even think about, and causing a chain reaction that I could have never predicted. And even more so, I worry about whether my words are even getting the message that I meant to convey across well.

In the end, like many of my hang-ups, it all comes down to fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of success. Well, fuck it. Consider this the first step forward. Because even a potential misstep is still a step, and it sure as hell beats standing still.