The Journey Continues
Technology, any “advancement” in how we interact with the world, comes with a price. The price is choice. We must choose to continue in the old ways of walking or accept the rocket ships that may take us to the farthest reaches of our imaginations. Often it is our imagination that suffers. It is far easier to hop in the rocket ship that someone else has crafted and go where their desires lead than to choose a different sort of journey that leads to our truer desires.
This is not a new thought and were I to Google it, many similar thoughts and words would be found. I know it to be true. I have always desired to be a good journalist, not in the sense of news media but as an individual who chronicles current events in their own life with their own point view. Circumstances have lead me here, to create this site and to change the transport for the journal of my voyage. It will be far from someone else’s rocket ship.
There are a lot of means to the end but I do like WordPress as it gives a lot of options for format and I will learn a few things along the way. So, I’m not re-inventing the wheel or becoming my own rocket scientist. The style, format and taxonomy will evolve but those are not the primary drivers. I want to focus on the journalism, anything beyond the thoughts put into words are tools to improve utility. WordPress can help me to focus less on the utility and more on the goal. So to meld the transportation more to my personality this is more like a bicycle with a taste of Texas.
There are multiple purposes for me in becoming an excellent journalist. Focus, memory, history and discovery to name a few.
By chronicling the events of daily life, it becomes easier to identify what is important. To what things do I gravitate and are those things satisfying or nuisance to my true self. Analyzing one’s thoughts and putting them into words does not always yield the truth but if one is honest in effort, the truth will come into focus.
“Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance
For me a journal supplements my memory. I like to think that I live in the present; however, the truth is that I have a poor memory. I can recall some facts but, often I cannot recall names or events and sense of time passing is usually very distorted. Having a good journal to reference is a tool for memory.
I have often wondered about my ancestors and their lives. It is unfortunate that there is no written history of their lives. I have old photographs that now have no context because all them members of the previous generations have passed. I hope that some of what I journal will be meaningful to future generations. Maybe I can contribute in some small way to understanding our times, our technology and our lives.
A journal is also a tool of research. As I read and learn, it becomes a place to organize notes, collect and link information, to share and collaborate with other people.
I can’t state that creating this site grew out of intense motivation, I was actually pushed off of Facebook because I couldn’t prove that I really am known as “Trekking”. They wanted a birth certificate or a water bill and picture of me. I decided that it was just too much conformity and that I spent too much time reacting to others and not enough time doing what was valuable to me.
I enjoy keeping up with my friends and the events in their lives, no doubt I will eventually re-activate my Facebook account but I want to give this a shot and hopefully my personal posts will become links to this site and I will let Facebook drive less and less of my on-line presence.
Hello world.
The Trekking Cyclist 