Into the Ether

Into the Ether

It’s hard getting started.

Especially when you don’t know where to start.

I’ve written about my break-up with Kim on this blog. I don’t want to or need to really pontificate on the emotional, mental or geographical havoc it wreaked on my life. That time is passed. And its not worth going into anyway. It happened and I’m nothing if not respectful of other people’s emotional responses to what I choose to put out here in the world. That’s a lesson I learned from Kim. And my Mom. I put out a FB post that I thought would be humorous yet tragic and I thought it was a little self-deprecating, a little self-congratulatory and altogether real and … well, let’s just say that it got less than rave reviews from Kim so I took it down. Similarly, I wrote a poem I put on this blog that I wrote right after I woke up that encapsulated what I felt that morning. Much of the literature about writing recommends that you write at least a little right when you wake up because that is when you at your most raw, core, and unfettered. The conventional wisdom among writers is not, however, that you necessarily have to put that on your blog so the whole world judge you. And your mother. So I took out the line that implicated Mom and let the rest of the poem stay.

The extremely valuable lesson about this and any other blog or book or other media phenomenon I decide to put out into the world is this:

Be careful. Despite my thinking it was raw and unfettered (and it was) no interactions I have with anyone should be replicated for the entertainment of my readers, such as their volume has, is, or will ever be. Doing so is just wrought with peril because despite how I want to be totally honest in everything I publish, other parties may have something to say about it and if it’s another party very dear to me, I must think long and hard about whether its worth the fallout.

Even with a penny-ante blog like this one, where my readership is mostly people who know me, people read my compositions and get from them what they get from them. I have no control over this and need to be ready to face the fall out whatever it is. As he says in Biloxi Blues, responsibility is my new watch word.

In light of all this, my plans for the new blog/podcast/YouTube channel have not died. In fact, in light of my new digs, they have amplified because I have total control of my physical surroundings.

So, I got work to do. Let’s get to it.