It’s been a while since this blog has seen any activity. Around four semi-finished drafts have been gathering dust for the better part of six months, and I didn’t think much of that fact. Creative waves come and go, I told myself. And through my first semester of pseudo-college, I dedicated all of my focus towards learning, understanding, putting my best into my work.
And why not? Focusing on the pursuit of knowledge is my dream, isn’t it? Confronting the vast expanse of information, insight, opinion, fact, fiction, and diving headfirst into its beautiful confusion – this is the romantic ideal to which I have always aspired. But I made an incredibly naïve mistake when attempting to actualize this aspiration – I failed to account for just how small I would feel.
The more I learned, the more I wondered what value I could possibly have to contribute. I saw every opinion I wrote down as looking at a vast ocean of knowledge and wisdom, then spitting into it. Inconsequential, of dubious benefit, small. And as I look back over my unfinished drafts, I can’t help but continue to agree with that sentiment. With titles like “the lie of empowerment” and “the end of equality”, they were nuggets of dubious opinion dressed up as fact, and I cannot, in good conscience, post them to this blog. I simply don’t like them. They don’t contribute to the vast expanse of knowledge: they pollute it.
What separates that from the rest of the stuff on this blog? I think it’s a difference in purpose. This blog began simply as a way to examine my thoughts and emotions, or let some of my creativity loose, and send the products out into the void. I was aware of how small I really am, and that did not affect my writing or its intent. The moment I sought to persuade, I lost my purpose. The moment I sought to persuade, I went from reflecting on the ocean of knowledge to spitting into it.
And so I will continue to feel small in my pursuit of knowledge, and I hope that this feeling will give me the humility I desperately need to enjoy the process of writing. I also hope that this will spur me to write some more stuff for the blog, which I am (as always) unsure that anyone will read. But that’s okay, because that’s not the point.
It never was, and it never should be.
