I’ve given some thought to a reason for this blog to exist. For the blog to be useful and purposeful, it must have focused goals. Discarded reasons are:
- Act as a journal of my daily life. I may have had a grand time in Yosemite, with pictures to prove it, but many people have a grand time in Yosemite. Can my experience be anything more than a photocopy of a postcard?
- Act as a personal repository of photos of my dogs, cars, and houses. A blog is by nature public, so the content must be non-personal enough to shield my family. Plus, personal details aren’t interesting to others.
- Pump up my ego any bigger than it is now. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. A bragging blog is a boring blog.
After musing about it, it occurred to me that as we travel through life, we have possessions taken from us that we took for granted as youths. We lose our looks, our hair, our shape, our teeth, and our energy. But what do we gain? A pile of cash to retire on? I want to retire in less than poverty someday but a monetary figure is not enough recompense to offset the loss of youth and all it’s benefits. Plus, money might be stolen or spent on hospital bills in a few months. I want to trade my youth for things that are more valuable and less frangible than money.
Wisdom comes to mind. A kind response to others. A strong relationship with my Creator, with me as servant and Him as the boss. Serenity. Service to others. These acquisitions make the bulging midriff and dental work worth it.
Now a flash of insight: the blog can be focused on these goals:
- Share what I’ve learned.
- Avoid self-serving focus on my personal details and events of my life while maintaining an outward focus.
- Let others know I’m struggling through (and surviving) the same life challenges they are.
A note on the first item above, “Share what I’ve learned”. This can be as trivial as how many minutes to roast coffee for optimum flavor, or as profound as a new prayer to honor my Creator. The nature of the Internet is that no informational detail is too small to be catalogued and retrieved when another person is stuck with a minor computer problem. So I expect to write on a mixture of computer-help (my career) and spiritual-help topics.
Let’s pause this for now at let it grow.