Life in the 810

iNTRODUCTION

My wife has suggested me moving to a blog for quite a while.  Post election discussions really made revisit her suggestion and acknowledge it’s current merit.  

Putting my thoughts to “pen and paper” is always   a process I personally benefit from.  I’ve done it for quite a while and it just helps me organize the endless waterfall of thoughts and feelings I have.    I made a conscious decision to share a very small amount of these topics over the last 18 months because I certainly enjoy discussion in general but that connectedness that on a day-to-day basis is harder to access in our current age.  

Many days are so busy with work, endless kid activities, housework, and trying to pour into my family that I sometimes try to by economical in how I socialize with people.  I am also endlessly curious… I swear sometimes people think the things they share with me are incredibly boring.  Most times I find those things to be incredibly interesting.

While I often engage in some light-hearted banter, sports discussion or lighter family anecdotes, I also venture into subjects that many people are not comfortable with.  So I often get little public discussion on those, but privately I often get messages from people with a lot to say on those topics, but they often very much are repulsed at the idea of discussing those items publicly.   And I get it.  These past ten days has certainly been a sledgehammer to remind me of that.  

So I publicly journal because I journal anyway, and the anxiety I had about baring the good, the bad and the ugly of myself has largely dissipated in my middle age.  As the kids say, I just don’t GAF any more.  I continue to journal because it sometimes results in just amazing conversations with people, and through those conversations I think we learn, we grow and we connect, in ways a little unique and with more accessibility.  

Many of those dialogues has really challenged the way I see the world, challenging my ignorance at times, challenging other’s at times, and showing me and them areas where we may have blind spots in life.  Either way, they often end up being positive, resulting in growth and appreciation.

So here we are.  I can allow other platforms to be more sanitized and less provocative, and I can exhibit a lot more control over my perceived criticisms of platforms like Facebook.  So, we will see.  This will either become a public journal that is functionally private 🤣🤣🤣, or I will connect with a few people abs hopefully be mutually beneficial.

Joe Keller contributed to this article.