This is written for those who should read it.
What I have put down for the past seven years of my life thus far is nowhere near a finished product. Many great stories, not even hinted at, were skipped over for the sake of time and progress. Emotion was the main engine that drove the memories and the writing, which made things exciting if not incredibly inconsistent. I write with an audience in mind. I always have, even when I started my first diary 20 years ago. I always figured that if I left this incredibly personal book somewhere (which I have) and some random passerby picked it up and read it (which they have), they should at least have some good, entertaining writing to muse about, something I myself would like to look through. Books like Go Ask Alice by Anonymous and The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, Naked by David Sedaris and Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk, were very influential to me, books that were captivating, unflinching, and true. And spoken from the author's own voice. If they weren't afraid to live life iconoclastically and tell about it, why can't we?
That being said, it feels very natural to have a blog. Being as unfettered with my language as I am and as comfortable with sharing as I can be, the ability to post my life on such a public bulletin board is too enticing an opportunity to pass up. But, blogs ain't diaries. They can act as such, with similar security devices and the free reign to explore anything, but not the way I use them. This isn't just some forgotten book left in a routinely visited area. Nor is it a highly lauded tome one can easily pass by at the book store or library. This is an open forum held aloft for the world to view, and I have done little to keep myself inaccessible on the Internet. I am hardly the most happening dude on the block, but I do know how to turn a dull, flat idea into something more legendary. And I am rarely the only person involved in the stories I write, and oftimes not the one most affected. I have gone through great pains and put much time and effort into ensuring that what I write is as honest and as all-encompassing as I can remember. Even so, that don't make it the truth. I am reminded of a great, wise bumper sticker which read, "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one, and they all stink." I am also reminded of the small amount of vastly silent yet strongly supportive readers who do stop by, some of whom the stories do affect, and the few of those who let me know how much (which they do).
This seven-year experiment is completed. As proud as I am of sticking with the whole damn thing, it's left me this challenge of making sense of what it was I just went through. Might be better off figuring out which chicken spawned the first egg, or vice versa. Still, it's rewarding to write about and it's a better use of my time than any number of bad habits I could easily fall into. I still have all my journals, even the ones from before the experiment, even the one from 20 years ago. But I rarely open any of them, including the seven dayplanners covered with copiously scribbled notes. Maybe for fact-checking purposes, but never for reminiscing. I find there's little need. All of it still resides inside me right here right now, every day there's some stimulus that will spark off a flurry of memories and emotions, unearthed and hurtling from left field, tinting the colors of the world I pass through. They can't be stopped or changed; they can only be helped along their path. The past cannot be relived, the future has yet to be experienced. All we have is Now. Now is one of the most real things you have, for it never leaves you. But Now never stays the same. Today's Now feels so different from last year's Now, from yesterday's Now. And next year's Now, tomorrow's Now, next moment's Now relies on what you do with right now's Now.
And it is this Now through which I filter my stories.
They will morph and flex through every tinkering, and eventually will be hastily abandoned into something considered, "finished." May take months, may take years. And everything I've done and have yet to do will continue to bend and mold them into shape. Such is the process I've bequeathed to myself. So, as you scroll through these words and find something familiar, something askew, something bald-faced wrong, know one thing:
This Now is not the final Now.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you understand a little better.
And now, on to the rewrites...
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