First, there was the ‘novel coronavirus’ outbreak, a biological red flag that should have put the world on high alert. It did–we all took notice. But truthfully, most of us were either too busy panicking or too busy being entertained by the chaos to really pay attention. Not just that, but this outbreak was all the way over in China. Why should we care, right?

That changed the moment the virus spread.

Within weeks, thousands of Covid-19 infections were being reported in multiple countries along with hundreds of deaths, and the entire world was placed under a global pause. Here in the United States, we entered the ‘COVID pandemic,’ an early response period that tested our national safeguards, safety nets, and our ability to cope with the scary and unknown.

We were ordered into full lockdown mode, and all in-person operations were suspended. Everything was closed except essential businesses and services. Still, the number of Covid-19 cases dramatically increased. Eventually, the public was asked to practice social distancing in an effort to flatten the infection curve and reduce the strain on first responders. But with little to no preparation, no clear guidelines, and almost no real support or direction from federal, state, or local governments, instead of seeing the public engage in the conscious practice of risk minimization, we came face-to-face with one of humanity’s darker instincts–a deep unwillingness to act in any manner that requires being personally inconvenienced, even if to do so would be for the greater good.

We discovered just how unprepared we were for a crisis. We saw how delayed our response times could be, how quickly lies and falsehoods could travel in an information vacuum, and how easily our healthcare systems could be overrun. And thanks to a massive lack of foresight and planning, we saw how difficult it is maintaining supply lines and organizing financial assistance in the wake of an emergency.

As a result, what was supposed to be a few weeks of staying at home became months of being locked indoors. Without realizing it, we’d tumbled headlong into the ‘quarantine,’ a prolonged period of social isolation that taxed our mental, physical, and spiritual health. Through it all, we banded together. We coped, we found a way to place blame, and we adjusted until finally, we reached a point that could exhaustingly be called ‘the new normal.’

Needless to say, there was a lot going on in 2020, and by year’s end, 2020 was affectionately being dubbed as “one-for-the-history-books.”

But 2020’s history-making capacity doesn’t stop there. I would argue it doesn’t even start there. Covid took the world by storm. But as devastating as it was, for the vast majority, it was merely a setback. A minor inconvenience, and life went on, business as usual.

I genuinely hate how callous it sounds, but regardless of what’s going on in your personal life,  the world waits for no one. No matter what you’re dealing with or what struggles you may face, the Earth will keep on turning. Things will continue to happen, one after another, and if you don’t keep up with the pace, you’ll be left behind. Forgotten

It’s a harsh reality. A bitter pill to swallow, and I doubt anyone enjoys living this way. Nevertheless, we play along, justifying this ‘truth,’ making it true by believing life isn’t supposed to be fair. And so we adapt. We did so to the shifting chaos of the Covid pandemic, and we used a logic dictating some things are beyond our control while other, more obvious misfortunes can be traced to a source.

Thus, Covid consumed our thoughts. And with no other headlines to distract us, an attention void was left behind. This is how we were caught a glimpse of what many activists, leaders, observant citizens, and the socially conscious have been telling us for a while.

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN!!!

From the police brutality of the Black Lives Matter protests to the widespread misinformation, political inaction, stalled economy, and lax public cooperation, the faults within our social infrastructure are numerous and apparent.

As an outside observer, it’s been interesting watching the fall of America and seeing the rising level of awareness. The growing recognition that things need to change. So many have been inspired to voice their frustrations and take action during this moratorium. Not just in person. From my perspective, it seems like there’s been a lot more proactivity on social media. A lot more targeted opinion sharing, as if we’ve reached an overdue breaking point in our society.

We most certainly have. The siege on capitol hill proved that, and the most vocal among us are already energized, telling us to be ready for a fight, confident that the foundations have been laid out for the future.

I suppose that’s why I’ve been feeling more restless lately, why I’ve been more and more out of sync. I know everyone’s ready for change. I know we are ready to move forward. Looking at the collective mood found throughout the daily news cycle and on social media, people are worn out. Everyone’s tired of the madness. Everyone’s patiently/anxiously waiting for things to return to normal, hoping a new year, a new presidential administration, a new vaccine, and a new societal lens (aka a new social paradigm) will help sweep 2020 under the rug.

While I certainly understand the desire, it scares shit out of me because from what I can tell, the current path were on leads us straight off a fucking cliff! And not necessarily for the reasons you might think.

That’s why I’ve decided to devote this section of my blog analyzing 2020. As the news rolled in, as headlines popped up and history was being made, there were so many pitfalls. So many missed opportunities. So many chances to do better. So many questions left unanswered. So many reasons why I’m frustrated, basically.

I know all too well the dangers of lingering in the past and ruminating on what could have been. Truthfully, I was hoping to use this part of my blog to work past that and actually form a community. But I can’t move on, not yet. Not until I figure out what sort of world I’m living in.

So, if you’re like me and you value knowledge, insight, and understanding, welcome to my field guide to the apocalypse. 

Real-life is a lot colder, a lot more desolate, and much less forgiving than I ever imagined. I don’t have the power to change that by myself. I can’t force anyone to listen to me, and I don’t have the ability to change people’s minds or make them adopt my perspective. All I can really do is share my experiences, express my deep dissatisfaction, and pray to God someone hears me.

With a little help and a good dose of luck maybe that will be enough.

Join me in my next post and we’ll discuss how the worse thing about 2020 was all the things that were miraculously left unsaid.

The post Shouting Into The Void (Am I The Only One?) appeared first on Write Or Wrong.

I’ve been asking myself repeatedly if this is the right approach. Whether or not I should be starting so early in the timeline of . . . me, basically. I doubt anyone REALLY wants to read about the life of a toddler. But I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection. Rediscovering my roots. And it never occurred to me how much of my core was established at an age when I was just learning about the world.

My intent is for this part of my blog to be a retrogression. A psychoanalysis. A biography? A history of personal development, maybe? However you want to phrase it, I plan on taking a deep dive into my memory, untangling my experiences, and sharing the thoughts and ideas that made me who I am today. I’ll delve into my childhood, my upbringing, my relationships, and all of my hopes and dreams. I’ll tell you all of the things I planned to do in life, and how I accomplished none of them. I’ll show you how stumbling through this crazy world alone ultimately led me to a place of self-discovery. I’ll tell you how I learned to fall in love with myself and other people. And eventually, I’ll tell you how I discovered there wasn’t as much kindness in the world as I thought there’d be.

These stories might seem mundane at first. But if you stick with me, you’ll see how they form the basis of my entire existence. You’ll come to understand why I’m so frustrated. And it all starts with the taste of pancakes.

I was in daycare. I started going there when I was a few months old, but this memory has to be from around the age of 2. I don’t recall a thing about the daycare facility. I don’t know what it looked like, what we did there, or how many kids there were. I can’t remember my caregiver’s face. But I remember her name, Ms. Rose.

I remember how she used to make us breakfast in the morning.

Most days, we just ate cereal or brown sugar oatmeal. The instant kind. Something quick and easy. But every now and then, Ms. Rose would cook, and when she did, it was always pancakes. She’d whip the batter up, and the aroma would fill the air as soon as the pancakes touched the griddle. In the meantime, she’d sit all of us kids down at a table set with plastic forks and white, styrofoam bowls.

I was always excited to see her coming around to fill our bowls up. She’d make a whole batch of pancakes, spread butter on each one, and drizzle the lot with syrup before cutting them into bite-sized pieces. She’d spoon the little morsels into our dish, and I’d spoon them straight into my mouth. I had no idea what I was eating at the time, but the taste was always the same. Warm, light, fluffy, and slightly sweet. I had my favorite pieces. The ones that were the most square, cut straight from the center where the butter and syrup had soaked in. They were the best, and for as long as I went there, that’s how I wished each day would begin.

From there, my memory fast forwards to pre-kindergarten.

It starts off with a conversation between my parents. I vaguely recall them discussing whether I was old enough to start school. There were age requirements. You had to be 5 years old. If you were 4, you could be enrolled, but only if your birthday came before the end of the school year.

My older sister met the criteria. She’d been going to the same daycare as me. My parents were looking for a place to enroll her, but they needed to figure out something for me, too. They wound up picking a school named Ubora located just outside our neighborhood. Ubora had an additional program for younger kids that I could attend, one that functioned like a cross between pre-k and daycare. So I suppose you could say that the fall of 1994, at the tender age of 3, is when my academic life truly began.

I remember my mom would drop my sister and me off every morning. We’d get there early, at least half an hour before class started. I’d immediately get funneled into a separate room with the other kids my age.

There would only be a handful there by the time I arrived, but one-by-one, the room would fill in as parents dropped their kids off until there were about twenty of us running around. Most of my classmates would talk, laugh, or chase each other playing tag or some other game. I’d join in now and then. But mostly, I liked to linger by the television that was always in the background. It was usually tuned to Sesame Street or Barney. But let them turn on some Power Rangers or cartoons, and I was glued.

Once I got into a show, I didn’t like being interrupted, even if it was time for class to start. That’s sort of why I remember this one girl who I’ll call Jessica. She was always there in the mornings, and she was one of those people who always seemed to be in the way no matter what she happened to be doing.

I was always shy and a bit quiet, at first. Jessica, on the other hand, was loud and full of energy. She tended to run around, horseplay, or talk just a little too much for me. I didn’t mean to care about her. She wouldn’t be the only one making noise, and when it got so loud I couldn’t hear the tv, I’d yell at everyone equally to be quiet.

But Jessica was special. She always seemed to be in my vicinity. Close enough that I couldn’t help but be bothered by her presence. I let her know, too. I’d tell her to leave me alone or go away. But she made a habit of coming to annoy me, and she was quick to run and tell the teacher when I’d raise my voice or push her. Although, she’d never mention the fact that she pinched me.

Anyway, I didn’t really like her. I would try to ignore her, but she was hard to miss. She always wore her hair in braids with trinkets at the ends. Sometimes beads. Sometimes barrettes. Sometimes multicolored rubber bands. But always something colorful and decorative that would catch my eye.

I remember one morning when Jessica came to school, and her braids were gathered up into a few loose ponytails. All except this one strand that dangled at the back of her neck, bobbing up and down like an out-of-place lure with every move.

I couldn’t stop staring at it. I was hoping someone would see it and that they’d call her out and tease her like she teased me. But no one else seemed to notice. Either that, or they didn’t care about the lone braid. Still, I didn’t like it, and I sincerely wanted it fixed. So I decided I’d do something about it.

I knew I was supposed to keep my hands to myself. But I figured if I were fast enough, she wouldn’t feel anything. Plus, the braid was thin and looked like it was barely hanging on. I didn’t say a word. I simply waited until she walked by. And the second her hair was in reach, I yanked!

The braid came out clean. I don’t remember if she said ouch. But when she turned around and saw me clutching her hair, she screamed at me. She probably pinched me. She probably hit me, too. But she definitely told the teacher, and I was in trouble. I told the truth, but saying it was for her own good wasn’t a valid excuse, and I was made to apologize. When my mom picked me up that afternoon and found out what I’d done, I had to apologize, again. And I got it a third when we got home and she told me dad.

No, I didn’t like Jessica, but that’s likely why she’s the only classmate whose “image” I can recall. There were other kids I was more friendly with, and we’d play together in class during freetime. Our classroom had a huge rug, one that looked like a city skyline with roads wide enough for toy cars. There were play mats on the floor made out of blue foam with bold yellow numbers and letters at their center. The edges were jagged and hooked together like a puzzle so you could cover large areas with them. We’d sit on those mats playing with wooden blocks, Legos, Lincoln logs, cards, coloring books, stuffed animals, toys, etc. But we did a lot more than just play. Quite a bit of learning went on. None that I can remember. Fortunately, my mom kept my old report cards, and on it, there’s a full list of phonics, numbers, maths, science, and other concepts we were responsible for mastering.

We weren’t taught the proper ‘alphabet,’ but we did learn how to recognize letters and the sounds they made. We learned to read and spell simple words. We learned how to trace letters and numbers, count up to one hundred, and do simple addition. We also learned the names of the colors, shapes, parts of the body, and in general, how to identify the larger world around us.

Mostly, I was a good student. I was pretty smart for my age (my teacher’s words printed on my report card, not mine). But I had a few issues with self-discipline. I didn’t like doing things when I wasn’t ready. I didn’t like having to raise my hand to speak, I had a knack for blurting out answers, and there was an unwillingness to respond when I wasn’t interested.

All of this would change on Fridays, however. Assuming we’d behaved throughout the week, our teacher would hand out a piece of paper with pictures of different sized coins on them. We’d learned the names of the coins and their value, but she helped us and gave us time to count our money. Then she’d line us up single-file by the doorway, ready to head out.

There was always a little competition to see who could be the line leader. Good grades weren’t enough to get you to the front, so that was my biggest motivator for acting proper. When we were finally settled and quiet, our teacher would lead us across the parking lot, and we’d take our weekly trip to the convenience store next door. Once inside, my classmates would let loose buying chips, sodas, pickles, or those little Drumstick ice cream cones. But my eyes were always on the candy rack, the first thing you’d see when walking into the store.

I was familiar with most of the items. When we were good or answered questions correctly, sometimes the teacher would give us candy. During fundraiser season, we could even buy it from her. That’s how I was exposed to Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops, Ring Pops, Skittles, Starburst, Hershey’s, you name it. But my favorite candy was Sour Punch, only the red kind. I’d eat the blue. I’d tolerate the green. But I loved the red, and I could always tell whether I was going to be happy or sad that day based on what color packaging was on the rack.

If I had money and they had my flavor, then the Sour Punch were mine. They were a hot commodity, and the reason I liked being first in the store. If there was no red Sour Punch, I’d go to my back up, Airheads. They were only 25 cents at the time, and I wasn’t nearly as picky with the flavoring. I made sure to get an assortment, though, a few flavors that I liked and one that I didn’t, because I knew when we got back to class, we’d be promptly encouraged to share. 

It was part of our ‘citizenship’ training–sharing is caring, and all that. I was usually pretty courteous about it. If a classmate had something I wanted, I’d ask and let them decide how much to give me. But it didn’t work that way when it came to my food. It’s not that I didn’t want to share. I couldn’t help but notice that everytime I offered my Sour Punch or agreed to let someone have a piece, they’d take it upon themselves to get four whole straws. Almost half the freaking pack!

And I’d get called stingy if I complained about it!!

It took a while, but I wisened up. At first, I tried to stop sharing altogether. I’d claim I was going to eat my candy later when I got home. But I could never wait that long, so eventually, I started standing up for myself and saying no or insisting I pass out the straws myself, IF I had Sour Punch. If I had Airheads, it was easy. They could have the gross flavor. I didn’t mind.

Anyway, that’s my first year of pre-kindergarten (pre-k I A) in a nutshell. Not much to go in, but the story gets better. Trust me. Plus, you’ll see how it all ties together in due course.

Join me next time, and I’ll talk about my second year at Ubora. I’ll discuss my first introduction to creativity, and we’ll take the first steps down the long road exploring how broad imaginations can lead to narrow futures.

Until then, what are the earliest things you can remember? And how did they make a lasting impression on your life?

I might be the only mind inquiring, but I’d really love to know.

Signing off for now.

Postuleo Jones

*Also, names have been changed to protect identities.*

The post Just a Taste appeared first on Write Or Wrong.

I’d been working on this post for days, typing things, deleting them, and typing them back with one or two words changed, hoping this time it’d sound right. I’d gotten pretty far, too. I’d written about two pages worth of text. Single spaced! And if you ignored the spelling mistakes/grammatical errors and sort of peeked-between-the-layers of my rough draft, yeah. There was a story in there…somewhere. All it needed was a few edits, and boom.

First real blog post, done!

But I couldn’t do it. I literally couldn’t do it.

Try as I might, I could not bring myself to accept my own writing because looking at it, it didn’t say anything. There’d been so much that I’d wanted to get across. Yet, somehow I’d completely missed all of it, and that’s really what this entire project was supposed to be about.

You see, the perfect introduction to this blog came to me while I was driving home from Outdoor World. It’d been a few days since I’d purchased a pistol, and I’d gone there looking for bullets. They didn’t have any. This was the third store I’d checked, and like the others, they were sold out.

It’s hard to describe how I felt during that car ride.

It seems so long ago, but I’d had a life at one point. I’d been a nurse. It’s not the career I wanted, but I’d learned an awful lot about biology, chemistry, and medicine while getting my degree, so the nerd in me couldn’t complain. Plus, I was helping people for a living, and in a lot of ways, that’s all I ever really wanted to do. I’d been working at a small hospital, a long-term acute care facility. Again, not what I would have chosen. However, I was fortunate enough to meet some truly wonderful people there. I ended up growing in ways I’d never thought possible, and for that, I was thankful. Still, life felt stagnant, like I was stuck in a rut. So in 2016, I gathered up my courage and started making a few changes.

I got the opportunity to take flight lessons, and I discovered a whole new world of passion and adventure that led to me getting my pilot’s license. I was still nursing at the time, but I was on a fast track to a brand new career in aviation. That all came to a halt when I got into a plane crash. It was a night flight, part of the solo training for my commercial license. And when the engine failed 6000ft in the clouds, it was just me, surrounded by the cover of darkness.

I survived, but that harrowing experience had left me shaken, and it forced me to re-evaluate everything around me. Luckily, some very special people had wandered into my life at just the right moment, people who inspired me to be a better version of myself. I was launched on a self-discovery kick, and after months of hard work, I started overcoming some mental illnesses I didn’t even know I’d had.

I was engaged and participating in society. I was putting myself out there. I was taking charge of my health and appreciating my body and all of the things that it could do. I was living life—actually living it and not just watching it pass me by. And before I knew it, the most amazing thing happened. I actually learned how to love myself.

I’d been happy. Like, genuinely happy. So much so that for the first time, I was actually content. Then in November 2019, I lost it all. I made the mistake of being ‘me,’ and I lost my job, my friends, and my faith in humanity. I’d made all of that progress just to return to a place of isolation, and I was left questioning my own existence, wondering if anything I’d experienced had been real or just a figment of my imagination.

It was downhill from there. When I hit rock bottom, I started looking around, trying to assemble the pieces of my life. Then COVID happened. The entire world descended into chaos, and my spiral continued. The more I tried to make sense of the insanity around me, the further behind I seemed to get. Eventually, all I could do was try to make it to the next day and pray things would get better. But they weren’t. Nothing was changing.

I’d been keeping the worst parts of my fall from grace bottled up, but there was no stopping the overflow in the car that day. I let myself have a controlled mini-breakdown to process my emotions, and I found myself arguing back and forth about the future.

On the one hand, I was exhausted, confused, and scared out of my mind thinking, how am I supposed to continue fighting to stay in a world I don’t understand? A world I don’t know even how to be a part of anymore?

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but be grateful.

Even though I’d been making plans and feeling the lowest I’d ever felt, the truth is I didn’t want to die. I might have been crying day and night and living with an emotional pain so intense it felt like my body would cave in, but I didn’t want to give up, either. I knew the only reason I felt so bad was because I knew what it was like to feel good. I was just afraid I’d never be able to get back to that happy place again, that it’d always be just beyond my reach. But through the tears, I was able to remind myself of something.

I’d been there as my life swirled down the potty hole. I’d watched and paid attention as it happened. There were definitely moments I wished I could take back and situations I would have handled differently in retrospect. But I’d been trying my best to be a good person, and it was way too fucking easy to slip through the cracks.

That’s precisely why I needed to speak up and why I had to say something.

My motivation renewed, I raced home and booted up my laptop. I opened up a new Word document, and muscle memory took over from there, guiding my fingers to the correct keys as I typed out a tentative title: “Where do I begin?”

Pausing to decide, it occurred to me I had no real clue how to answer that. My only intention had been to translate the thoughts I’d had in my car directly on to a page. But as nice and neat as I’m making it sound, in reality, everything I mentioned above played out in the form of a 20-minute mental rant. I’d been remembering the past, analyzing the present, projecting the future, and thinking about everything in between. Somewhere in the middle of that is when I wandered into an internal monologue that was so cathartic and powerful, I knew it needed to be shared.

Now that I was sitting down trying to recall it, however, the words weren’t there. It was as if every thought, every feeling, every emotion, and every single thing I’d wanted to say had disappeared into the ether. My mind was left completely empty, except for the fact that it wasn’t, and it never is. My brain never stops. The gears were still turning. I’d merely lost the ability to focus the effort into an inner voice. Instead, my consciousness was an endless fog of questions.

 Where do I start? How do I start? What tone should I take? Is this the right approach? What do I say?

And from the depths, a solitary notion bubbled to the surface. “What would happen if I left this page blank?”

Before I could ignore it, the reflexive part of my imagination took the idea and ran with it. I could see it clear as day. I was going to start this blog. I was going to do all the work of creating a website, an image, and establishing a social media presence. I’d plan out topics, discussions, and an overall vision that would extend well into the future, creating a brand. I’d enlist some help to get it all running, and once it launched, some unknown, mysterious set of circumstances (advertising/marketing) would lure you to my page. You’d see there was content galore waiting. You’d click open the first post expecting some insightful narrative to unfold, and BAM!!

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No words. No text. No context. Just a title, an empty page, and (unbeknownst to you) an interactive metaphor giving you a taste of the rising anticipation and eventual disappointment of chronic writer’s block.

It wasn’t funny, but I had to laugh at the way I’d pictured it in my head. Not just that. I found it slightly amusing how it only took two seconds of staring at a blank page for the self-doubt to kick in, and how my response to it had been even quicker. I didn’t want to believe it was there. But sure enough, when I took my next breath, I could feel the anxiety creeping deep within my chest.

Annoying, but not surprising. 

“Relax,” I told myself, dealing with it the only way I knew how, through acknowledgment. Just because my inner voice had gone numb, there was no need to be disheartened. Even if I couldn’t feel it, my passion hadn’t abandoned me. The desire to express myself was still there. So was everything I’d wanted to say. After all, my situation in life hadn’t changed. I just needed to calm down and reconstruct the headspace I’d been in earlier. Then I’d worry about channeling it.

My eyes closed as I attempted to do just that. Time passed, and I sifted through my memory, meditating on all of the chances occurrences that had led me to this moment. Considering how much I’d learned throughout my ordeal, how much I’d grown, and how much knowledge I wanted to share, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. But that’s exactly why things needed to change and why I’d been so frustrated by my own lack of power.

I reached for the keyboard again. The helplessness that’d underpinned the beginnings of my rant had returned, along with the righteous indignation and the will to defy everyone I’d met over the past year who’d told me, “That’s just the way things are.”

But before I could start typing, I hit another roadblock. Another wave of anxiety and another wall of questions. Where do I begin? How do I start this? Will it tell people why I’m here? Is it enough? Should I say more?

By now, the aggravatingly visceral ache in my chest had grown so large and radiant, it threatened to completely overtake my awareness. If I wanted any hope of being at peace for the rest of the day, I had to write something. I didn’t have a choice. But where to start?

My eyes rolled. “I don’t know. Just pick a place!”

I opted for writing that little story about leaving this page blank. The idea wasn’t any good and would never have worked for numerous reasons. But my mind kept circling around it, thinking about the fact that it was a complete concept, one that actually made sense if you rationalized it the right way. It was a good example of how quickly and efficiently my brain could overthink at times, a topic I eventually wanted to cover. So, without even bothering to check it for mistakes, I quickly typed out the passage then walked away, not wanting to stick around for the disappointment.

Over the next few days, I settled into a predictable pattern. I’d think about writing, I’d get inspired, I’d sit down to do it, and then I’d spend the next two, three, sometimes four hours fielding the same questions that’d haunted me on day one until I could no longer bear the anxiety.

Each time, I’d acknowledge and process a bit more of my dissatisfaction. I was upset because I’d really wanted to write something personal, emotional, thoughtful, compelling, and creative. I’d wanted to give a little history on myself and talk about what I wanted to accomplish with this blog while giving a general overview.

I wanted to lure people in and let them know that I wanted to talk about everything. I wanted to talk about life. I wanted to describe the world I found myself living in, talk about my frustrations with it, and discuss why I was simultaneously skeptical yet incredibly hopeful for the future. I wanted to ask others about their lives. I wanted to know what sort of world everyone else sees, and I wanted to get their take on what it means and what it feels like to be alive.

Basically, I just wanted the chance to be ‘me’ again. I wanted the opportunity to do the one thing I’ve always wanted which is finding a way to connect with others through a shared experience. I just couldn’t figure out how to say any of this, and the harder I tried, the further away I seemed to stray because I couldn’t figure out where to begin or how I’d tie it all together.

Weeks went by. I’d been writing every single day, and all I’d really managed to do was scribble down a couple of different ways to introduce myself, a few of my goals, and the “how I almost left this page blank” story. I considered putting all of THAT together and posting it as a way to chronicle the madness and the difficulty I have with self-expression. It’s not like there were any rules to this blog thing. I could write whatever I wanted, start wherever I wanted, and the result would likely be the same. But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like anything except like I’d been defeated. The same feeling I had when I lost my life and when I almost took it.

It got to a point where I had to sit myself down and ask, why was I so anxious? Why was I so damn frustrated? Why couldn’t I just pick a spot and start? And why was it so hard for me to say anything when I already knew what I wanted to say?

“Easy!!” I thought. “Because knowing what I want to say and knowing how I feel isn’t really the issue. Never has been. The problem is always communicating it. The problem is always having conversations where only one party is involved. The problem is always being able to see everyone else’s perspective and doing it so well, no one ever has to look at mine. I always have to go through this complicated process of phrasing my speech from someone else’s point of view so it reaches them. Then I just sit around hoping they will return the favor by validating my existence. The problem is I don’t want to have to try so hard all the time. I just want to be me. I just want the ability to be me and to not have to fuss about it…

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Why don’t I just say that then? At least people would know why this first post might seem so disjointed.”

And so I did. I capitalized on that “duh” moment and wrote down that mini-rant. It wasn’t ideal, but it was somewhat reminiscent of the one I’d been spending weeks trying to recall, and it showcased a bit of the sass and personality I’d been trying so hard to convey.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied, but I was confident there were enough scraps of writing littered about to weave a story together. I went to save this document, only this time, I moved it under a folder I’d set aside for eventual blog posts. I noticed there was already a file there titled “Introduction.” That’s when I remembered I’d tried this blog thing once before, back in November 2019, right when my world went into freefall. I went and read it, and I liked it. So much so that I still wanted to use it.

“Shit! Now what am I supposed to do? I have to explain that one year gap.” I thought about it for a minute, considering my options. “I guess I could briefly mention how I’d been busy dealing with life and working my way through the system—which is sort of how I realized it was broken in the first place. Although to be fair, the system isn’t broken; it actually functions just as it was intended, which is exactly why it doesn’t work. But in order to really talk about that, I’d have to tell people about everything that happened beforehand, and . . .”

I trailed off. There was just way too much to explain. The anxiety and frustration was building up again, and I didn’t want to feel them anymore. I forced myself to accept the fact I was putting way too much pressure on this post, and I did what I probably should have done a long time ago.

“I give up,” I said. “There won’t be any grand introduction or some mind-blowingly awesome debut. I’m just gonna write a story about how I accomplished absolutely none of the things I wanted to with this post, and that’s just gonna be it. I can’t keep stressing about this, not when there’s literally an entire world of things I need to vent.”

So, with that said, welcome to my blog (again). I have a lot to say, I don’t know where to start with half of it, but eventually, we’ll get there.

Great. Glad that’s done. See you next time.

The post Where do I Begin? appeared first on Write Or Wrong.

So, again, thank you! And here we go.

I’ve always enjoyed writing—well reading to be more precise. But the idea of writing has always allured me. I’ll delve into the exact reasons why, sooner or later. But suffice to say, it brought me a tremendous amount of joy and comfort being able to share in the experiences of others and not feel quite as alone when I was a kid. To this day, I credit books for saving my life. One of these days, I intend to pay it forward with a novel of my own. In fact, that has always been my grand scheme in life, to be an author. In a further fact, I have been working on an original piece that’s almost finished. (I might be slightly exaggerating its proximity to completion, but it is significantly more ‘done’ than ‘not done’.) Which sort of begs the question, if I’m really that close to achieving my childhood dream, why am I spending time writing a blog instead?

For starters, shame on you if your first assumption was that I can’t do two things at once! I can’t. But like all habitual procrastinators, I like to maintain the illusion that I am much more productive than I really am, if only for the sake of my own ego. Plus, you shouldn’t be assuming. So yes, even though you are correct, I’m still going to shame you!!!

Putting that attempt at humor aside, truthfully, I’ve been at a creative standstill for a while now. The reasons are varied, but the essence is all the same. I have a deep-seated fear of expressing myself. This might lead you to the logical conclusion that I intend for this blog to serve as a creative outlet for my anxieties and frustrations, and you wouldn’t be wrong about that. But I can’t just vent about my demons and expect that to render them powerless. I still have to face them, and that’s something I’ve struggled to do my entire life. Which sort of leads us back to the original question, why a blog? And why now?

This is something I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately. I had every intention of going through my entire thought process on the subject. However, for reasons that you’ll hopefully come to understand if you continue this journey with me, my faith in lengthy explanations has been shaken to its core. Not to mention this is just an introduction. So I’ll keep this short and cut straight to the point.

I’m writing this blog because I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’ve spent my entire life believing society was built on logic and compassion. I believed that people had an innate desire to bond and relate to one another and that communication was the tool by which we tried to understand and empathize with each other. With the proper information, people were inherently good and selfless. And I did not discover that this wasn’t true until about three weeks ago.

I am writing this blog because I am twenty-eight years old, and even though I’ve spent most of my life hating who I was, I loved the world and the people in it. I wanted to participate in all the experiences life had to offer because, even when times were tough, I could see that there was so much value in being able to share and appreciate the small moments. Even though I didn’t fit in, I believed that if I could just find a way to make a connection, people would learn to see me as beautifully as I saw them. And I did not discover that his wasn’t true until about three weeks ago.

I am writing this blog because I am twenty-eight years old, and I did not know the painful reality I was living in my entire life was reality. Long ago, I’d formed an idea of what happiness was. Rather, I was able to observe it. It’s always been just out of my reach, but at least I could see it, and I knew how to get there. While finding that level of acceptance isn’t a statistically rare occurrence, unfortunately, the conscious practice of it is. This revelation didn’t happen till about three weeks ago, and since then, I’ve been questioning whether it’s even worth sticking around.

I’m writing this blog because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve lost my way. Worse than that I’m being told the only method of navigation I have isn’t ‘wrong,’ but it’s still wrong. So I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do because I can still see that happy place. Only now, I have absolutely no idea how I’m ever going to get there.

I’m writing this blog because if I can’t learn to love the world again, I’m going to have to be selfish and create my own. I’m going to have to carve out my own little sphere where I can be the type of person I want to be, where the happiness that I want can exist, even if it’s only on the pages of a book or on those of a computer screen.

Of course, no one likes being alone. So, if you’re reading this or any other posts that I make and you find my words resonating, you’re more than welcome to join my world. And as mentioned at the start, I truly, truly appreciate you.

I’m Postuleo Jones, by the way. No, that isn’t my real name. But that shouldn’t surprise you. This isn’t the ‘real’ world. Rest assured. I do exist. I am but the ever-wondering mind of someone who will eventually be revealed.

In the meantime, welcome to my domain.

The post Introduction appeared first on Write Or Wrong.