i need to write more

2017 has crept upon me. It’s February already. I almost forgot to pay rent.

One of my resolutions this year is to write more and to talk to people more.

There are a variety of reasons that I chose this resolution: I noticed that I wonder about things a lot. I like making ideas and contemplating them. However, because I don’t write or talk to people much, I’m left with half-baked ideas that I cannot communicate to others, often feeling isolated and powerless. This is how it has been for a long time, since I was small.

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite pastimes was to go “fishing". I had my very own fishing net and rod. I took those, some ears of bread from the kitchen, and a bucket down to the lake near my home.

I remember sitting down on the rocks by the lake and balancing the bucket precariously next to me. I balled up the bread and casted the line. The breeze tapped a rhythm on my face with my hair. The waves sighed and licked the rocks. It didn’t take long to get swallowed by the rhythm, and within minutes, my eyes glazed over and I was lost in thought.

I wonder why that homeless guy is always at the bus stop by the grocery store in the morning. I wonder how old he is. He looks pretty old. Maybe he has children. Wait, I don't think I've met homeless kids at my school. I wonder what school they go to. What kind of food do they bring for lunch? Probably sandwiches. That's what most kids have. I guess it makes sense that they would have the same.Actually, how would I know if a kid is homeless or not? Maybe I just don't know. Do I need to know? I probably don't really need to know.

And then there was a tug on my rod. My bait was gone. Ball bread. Cast line. Ponder. Repeat cycle until I became hungry and went home.

Oftentimes, through thinking while fishing, I developed a deeper understanding of the world, a person, or myself, and I could extract some kind of conclusion.

But no one could ever come inside my imagination. I could see, smell, taste, hear, and feel my world, but it was so difficult to explain my imagined experiences in it to anyone else. That was my imagination, and that was all. I couldn’t express the conclusions I drew from it or their significance. I experienced and learned by myself. And this left me feeling isolated, lonely, and powerless.

On top of that, my conclusions remained fuzzy rather than defined in words as concepts. As a result I could not always fully understand their implications, and I often couldn’t build upon them.

This is why writing and talking is important for me. I want to turn my thoughts into concepts that I can communicate to others, that I can record and thus fully analyze and understand. Otherwise, my ideas cannot grow. I cannot grow. And I cannot use my ideas to bring changes I want to see in the world. Pondering and blissfully living in a imaginary world that only I can experience is not enough for me any longer. I want to include others in my world. And I want to use my ideas to make the world a better place.

A key step I need to take is to write and speak.

And with that, I introduce my blog.