Today's post will be a slight change of pace. When I closed down my blog in 2013, I had posted 1,113 posts. Since resurrecting it in 2019, I've posted 886 posts, and today's is post #887. If my math is correct, that adds up to 2,000 posts.
(Now, you may notice that, according to the present post counter, this is not post #2,000; rather, this is only post #1,137. I didn't release all original 1,113 posts because I had realized years after I had had time to reflect and work on myself, many of these earlier posts truly were not suitable for public consumption.)
In my younger and far-less-mature years, I had a habit of celebrating almost every century milestone of posts. My primary thought process was that one of my key blogging inspirations from back then, another guy who happened to be a couple years younger than me, had a habit of doing so. He was still a teenager at the time, so of course he would do something like that! Additionally, due to all sorts of things I went through growing up, the effects of those things led me to being honestly kind of a ditz* when it came to learning things about life (i.e. "common sense")...
[*This is one of the first times I've ever used this word, even privately, and probably the first time I've used this word publicly. In transparency, I googled the sentence: "is ditz a swear word?" Below is the response I received below from AI Summary:
To determine if "ditz" is a swear word, consider the following points:
- "Ditz" is a slang term often used to describe someone as scatterbrained or silly.
- It is generally considered informal and can be derogatory, but not a traditional swear word.
- The term may be offensive to some, depending on context and tone.
- It is often used in a light-hearted or teasing manner among friends.
- In formal settings, using "ditz" may be seen as unprofessional or disrespectful.
- Always consider your audience and the context before using slang terms like "ditz."
My conclusion: calling other people names of any kind crosses a line (especially given yesterday's post about identity and names!), and I should even be careful about using it on myself (what we speak over ourselves also matters!). That said, the context here is reflective, referring to my understanding of myself and why I said and did the things I said and did. This word is no longer my name and hasn't been for quite some time now. But I find the term helpful for explaining why I would say and do the things I said and did, considering that that had led to a very long series of painful occurrences, consequences I wouldn't finally understand until really the last year or so. Things such as trauma and lack of timely healing-related measures really do a number on a person no matter what age (see: any war veteran who experienced shell shock and PTSD of all types and forms), but even more so to a child because it can stunt -- and, in my case, has stunted -- severely, that child's development and capacity for learning even the basic things that most people are privileged to have been taught with minimal issue whatsoever.]
I got off track, but I do think sharing the above was important, not only for me, but also for the reader's benefit. The majority of the world doesn't understand how things in this life can affect people to the point that commonly-held assumptions cannot apply (like "common sense"), no matter how much you might try to lecture, shame, argue, or debate us. At the end of the day, you didn't live through the experiences that have damaged so many people, and no amount of "deductive reasoning," on human knowledge and power alone (i.e. without God), will lead you to the full truth and nothing but the truth. There's a reason why this is in the Bible:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Continuing in the spirit of transparency, I know full well this is something I have had a very hard time applying, myself. It's one thing to be able to read it and understand it on an intellectual level (which still matters); it's quite another to be able to take that knowledge from the intellectual to actually knowing how to put it into practice, and then being able to do it. The point is, I do believe I get it: this is hard to do. However, I'm more inclined to give grace to those who are humble and slow to judge until they actually have all the relevant data.
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:“God resists the proud,But gives grace to the humble.”
So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;
So now, getting back on track, I was commenting about how my blogging peer had a habit of commemorating every century mark of posts with joy (because he was of high school age), and so I saw that and deduced myself that that was a good thing to do. There was so much about life that I wasn't taught that I had to find a way to teach myself, "street style," if you will. This is evidence that I tried to teach myself things, that I tried to learn with the meager tools I had. Unfortunately, without good life teachers, I was bound not only to make lots of mistakes, but to continue making them season after season because I didn't understand the consequences, let alone why said consequences were happening. (To be clear, I had many great teachers in terms of school subjects. But for a large majority of them, that was where their job description ended. I don't fault them, though, as I didn't expect them to be any sort of life coach for me.)
So, if someone younger than me (even when we were kids) thought it meet and right so to do to commemorate each century mark for blog posts, due to the learning process I had (essentially strictly by imitation), I was going to do the same. Unfortunately, because I began blogging in college and then hit those century marks through my college years and then the first several years into adulthood, the way it likely would have come across is of someone who was full of themselves. And I was. Not because I wanted to be, but because I was still surviving and trying (but generally failing) to make sense of it all.
So, today I commemorate the 2,000th post "in spirit" (because, after all, this is technically only post #1,137, unless I decide to resurrect more posts from the 2005-2013 era) because, at least to me, it's a testament to God's faithfulness in my life regarding the gift of literary writing. In terms of creative gifts, I think of myself as a composer and piano performer, and more spiritually speaking, as a worshipper and declarer of the works of the Lord (as per the blog's current and still-new title); but literary writing is there as well. I've just been very blind to it, like I've been with almost everything else in life.
I had a great English teacher in middle school (New York, if you've been following my story which I've shared in bits and pieces on this space). We were doing an all-school project (this may have been the year we did the passion and death of Jesus in a modern-day trial format), and we were divided up into different project groups, irrespective of grade level. I wanted to join the art group and help with the set design. I ultimately did do that, but my English teacher (who was also my advisor) really tried to get me to be in the writing group (I think they may have been tasked with writing newspaper articles, press releases, things of that nature, pertaining to this mock trial all-school project that we were doing). She had commented about how well I had written a few of the recent class assignments and she stressed that she thought she saw potential in my ability to write well. I kept protesting and saying no, I want to be in the art group, and she ultimately relented, admitting her sadness in the process. Looking back, I do wonder "what if"... what if I had instead relented? How would that have snowballed in a positive way? Would I not only have gotten better grades in high school English (I got Cs) but also have been recommended ultimately to consider a writing career, in publications, journalism, etc.? A "what if" indeed.
Last spring, I saw an ad online for publishing my own book, and even attended a book-publishing seminar, both decisions aimed at gaining information. I wasn't in a position to commit to publishing a book (that alone costs several thousand dollars!), but I thought I potentially could be ready in about six months or so. It is now a year later, and I'm still no closer on that front. (I have written a lot more blog posts, however...)
The point of all these different thoughts and stories is simply this: blindness, lack of awareness, lack of understanding, scatterbrainedness, and sometimes inappropriate silliness. (This last one may be why I take life so seriously! It's simply an auto-correction from how I once was, which sometimes was perceived as hopelessly silly. How can one truly "grow up" if he or she wasn't given a clear direction regarding when it's acceptable to be silly and when it's acceptable let alone necessary to be serious? I mean, I did have some teachers who did their best to set and model those boundaries, but any individual teacher can only do so much...)
I firmly believe I'm still in this period of "no reunions." It has been very hard and painful, because I do have a few people that I really would like to visit and catch up that I haven't in years. But the more time passes, the more I understand why. Yes, no man is an island, and I'm not an island. I have my wonderful wife. I have my pastor and elder where we gather to pray and encourage one another periodically. I have two friends I still call weekly. And then there's family, who my wife and I visit at varying frequencies. And I may be missing a couple of other categories here. So this divine isolation is not completely wholesale. But it's given me an opportunity to examine things in ways I had never done before (much of which will not make it onto this blog, for obvious reasons), and it's allowing me for the first time to be able to reconsider how to approach all manner of things in life, including other people.
Until then, here's to the next 2,000 posts, or however many God allows me to write and post. Just don't expect me to commemorate the century mark anymore. I am grateful for just being able to reach this mark. But I don't even know if I'll commemorate post #3,000.