Just noticed a rather significant amount of time ha passed since my last entry: September (unless I count the last public post, March. Even more grotesque) yikes!
Separately, I express myself best in writing. As with any barbed social media post, writing allows me, as well as many others I’m sure, to precisely curate my thoughts in order to paint myself in a more favorable light. Trouble is, the perfect syntax is in no way a true representation of my everyday reality.
I may come across, at times, in my witing as one who is fairly well spoken, clear and concise. When in person, staring into they eyes of another person, I’m just as regular as the next bloke, fumbling for words, sweating profusely and largely unaware of the direction of the conversation I’m engaged in beyond the next couple words.
That’s not to say I don’t have options about life, parenting, politics, cycling, meditation, gluten free foods and the like, I just have a mental block when trying to express those options and build coherent arguments on the fly, with another human being’s gaze leading me to believe they are waiting to pounce on any holes in my argument like a lioness on the Serengeti.
I guess that’s where one should exercise discipline and as many authors and spiritual teachers have said, “do hard things,” and face head on the very things that trip me up.
Until I get that nailed down, here is a list of other topics I aim to pen some thoughts about in the near future:
The #metoo social media campaign. (Spoiler alert. My feelings in short: men, quit thinking and speaking with your dicks. You well know if you’ve violated a woman’s body, admit it! When your answer is exactly the same as every other dudes answer, it seems pretty obvious to me that the ladies aren’t “fishing for publicity.”)
Parenting. As in, the real stuff my wife and I and our friends screw up every day in regards to our kids.
Meditation/spirituality. Not the bullshit perpetuated by organized religion, but the real life, how the hell do I meditate when I’ve got a lego jammed up my ass from the tornado that is my living room, with my kids fighting about food and who stole who’s Pokémon cards? And, how does one square conservative politics with religion, Christianity specifically in the US?
Art. Likely a lament on the fact that I just don’t make time to create like I used to.
That should keep me going for a while. A couple of those streams will more than certainly lead to a river, or to steal the far too often used metaphor, open up a can of worms. Should be fun, or at the very least cathartic and in the mean time, move me toward, or at the very least in the general direction of, that other title thought, discipline.
The Hopefully Skeptical Dad 