Saturday Afternoon

I had nothing going this Saturday afternoon so I dithered part of it away by revisiting some of my old Blogger blogs. This one is probably my favourite.

It's been 10 years since I created 500 Words Per Day. That is astonishing. Reading over my old ramblings I was struck by a couple of things. Yes, there was the sheer, breathless stupidity of my topics, ranging from the trivial to the absolutely asinine. The regular sidetracks into piggish, male chauvinistic territory surprised me as well. (Was I really that much of a pervert?) But I did hold myself to a standard of conduct from the get-go, did I not? No filters, just write! Spew!

 I also became sad. No, it wasn't the realization that 28-year old me was an idiot because I was already acutely aware of this fact even then. No, reading this and a few of my other blogs reminded me of how shamelessly I discarded the one creative activity I most loved doing.

Yes, writing.

I started this blog in my late-twenties as a way of putting a stake in the ground. I knew that I loved to write. I also knew that I had a long way to go before actually becoming competent at my passion. Skill would only come through raw, consistent and uncompromising practice. I would have to ply my trade tirelessly in order to succeed, yes? So I wrote in this blog for a while. Eventually I wrote for other blogs.

But then I stopped writing. I went chasing another passion of mine - which was completely necessary for me to do at the time - and I followed through with that commitment. But the important lesson here is that I stopped writing. The years fell away and I abandoned this wonderful activity for a myriad reasons. You can take your pick of the excuses out of this hat that is chock-full of them.

 So I read through this blog and I had a good laugh or two. But it's got me thinking again...