First Post on a New Blog

Well, here's the first post on a new blog, a symptom of caffeine-induced insomnia.  I will try to blog as much as I can and to make this a place to both share my thoughts and listen to the thoughts of others.  Most of all, I will try to express my inmost self and to write for the simple pleasure of writing.

I think I'll begin this first post with a poem I once wrote about journal keeping.  Hopefully these thoughts will guide this blog.

Failure

Thirteen blank pages at the end of an old journal

Glare and turn their backs on me as I leaf through them.

The dates scrawled in the corners of entries 

Read more like history than chronology:

Moments scattered between the years of my life, 

Plucked from obscurity by a poor historian

Trying to get published so he can eat.

I wonder if they reflect an empty soul.

Who cares if I leave my life for posterity,

Record my every waking moment so that one day,

-- When I am dead and not famous --

Someone, somewhere can read my life

And pretend that I was the norm.

They will pore over every word,

Carefully plucking meaning from each sentence.

"Wow!  Look!" they will exclaim.  "This day he peed.

"How much he is like us.

"I feel a deep spiritual connection with him.

"Let us meditate on his surreal bathroom experience."

I am not defined by words on a page,

Or their absence.

If I am to write anything, it must mean something;

It must mean something to me.

Someone else might read it and be inspired,

But if I write for someone else alone, I silence a part of me.

So I will keep these pages blank,

Move on to the next journal.

And I will keep it just as infrequently as this one,

Not because I do not care,

But because I need to know I'm flawed.

It's humbling.