Traditional Journaling

I have, for a long time, strove to write posts on this blog within a tightly-defined scope. This was an intentional attempt to enforce discipline on my writing, and I believe it has been very beneficial to me. However, it has left me without an outlet to describe my less-formed thoughts, not to mention the vicissitudes of my day-to-day life - things I value recording.

It is possible that a separate, private journal of some form would be a better solution to this issue, but for now I have made the decision to risk erring on the side of publishing some content online unnecessarily, rather than the alternate risk of not publishing enough online. I have thought about this two ways:

1. The risk domain is gentle - it is hard to imagine anything terrible coming of me publishing more thoughts online.
2. The resilience I wish to prove in all my thought. A public thought is always more anti-fragile than a private thought for someone receptive to feedback.

It occurs to me that a further 'cost' of this choice is a degradation in the broad quality of my published output on this website. That's another thing I have two thoughts about:

1. I'll tag such entries "Updates" to allow for filtering of posts.
2. I would be kidding myself that many people are reading, or that a quality degradation would have a material effect.

One thing I have learned by getting older is that understanding (and through it, wisdom) comes from a keen sense of observation - including observation of the reasons oneself changes as a result of their environment, disposition, attitude, and other factors. And so, by better observing and understanding how we become who we become, we learn to better steer ourselves towards success and happiness, and away from failure and misery.

I am 35, and by some means of which I have scarce understanding, I have managed to build a life where I am happy an inordinate amount of the time. What is to credit for this miracle? Even at this age, and even as someone who has been predisposed to self-examination all of my adolescent and adult life, it is a terribly difficult question to answer. I have many theories, but one thing the world has taught me is that explanations are a dime a dozen, while true answers are elusive, and much slower to arrive than we often believe. I intend to be patient in looking for the true answer, but I do intend to find it!