The Guilty Magpie Wants It All

I’ve started learning a new hobby. It would be nice if it could evolve into something someone is willing to pay me for but until that point I’ll keep it stored away in the hobby with intent file. I’ve a had a few of those, it’s probably a little fatter than it should be. It’s good to be a jack of all trades in a way but I quite fancy the relaxed possibilities that come with being a master of at least something. I heard once happiness, or at least a part of the whole happiness package, is to be a master of something because it allows you to be relaxed and content with what inevitably will take up a large part of your time. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to report on that. It only takes ten thousand hours to be a master apparently, about ten years I once worked out. Think of something you started ten years ago but didn’t carry on, doesn’t feel that long ago now eh.

What is it that makes us give up on things? Too difficult perhaps. Or we’re just lazy. I’m usually a little distracted and a little lazy. The difficulty doesn’t bother me because I’m usually naive enough to just jump in without much thought about whether I’ll be actually capable enough. I’ve also not tried anything overly taxing like theoretical physics so it’s hard to say what my limitations are. Usually myself though to be honest. I can be a lazy bugger and well I like new shinny things and once one hobby losses it’s lustre it’s quite easy to be distracted by another. Is this a thing we can blame society on I wonder, this short attention span, or is it something we need to step up to and own. Probably a little bit of both, you know how it is.

I don’t really want to talk about myself too much though, I know there is a lot of I this and I that in here. One of the reasons for this though is that we see others being successful and imagine we alone are useless, that we are alone in this world with our suffering. It turns out we’re not. It turns out we’re all useless or incompetent or incapable or whatever detrimental thing we’ve learnt to class ourselves as at something. In an ideal world I would love this new hobby of mine to evolve into something that defines my life in a positive way but I’m also aware theres a good chance it won’t. Do I beat myself up over this, let’s be honest I’m probably not going to. I know I’m not alone in this world when it comes to such things and quite often what we struggle with the most is the idea that we are, that we’re the first to have messed up. Well we’re not and I guarantee there is a long line of people who have already made that same series of ridiculous choices. Don’t beat yourself up. There’s always some other shinny thing just around the corner.

This Blog

One thing I have noticed about this blog is that since I started publishing it and not continued keeping it a secret thing like the first month, I have stopped writing about the blog itself. The pieces now seem to be about topics; such as resolutions, Dublin, something political, and other things I can’t remember but certainly in the early days I was happy to write about how this beast itself was developing. Initially the point of the blog was to do an experiment and see whether I could write about something every day. So far I have managed that and it is something that the majority of the time doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of effort. The articles are not necessarily of the highest calibre, or what I would like them to be, I suspect if I took longer or didn’t put a piece out daily, I could take more time and effort researching and forming something. Instead as is clear I seem to start with an idea and just go from there, which I also really enjoy as a format. I’ve mentioned before about the discipline to sit down each day and the mental discipline to put in effort to write something decent are separate things. Since publishing certainly the awareness of others reading has had an effect on this, but I think I am pushing myself slightly more; fully aware I could go further, which will evolve as time goes on.

What will also evolve though, and has as I said, is what I write about. As I mentioned already I’m not really putting out fluff pieces – although it could be argued this is one – even though it’s a perfectly legitimate topic it feels slightly self-indulgent. I see other blogs and they seem to be on particular issue, like travel, food, mindfulness or politics and I seem to drift into each of those areas when I feel like it. To attract people to this blog it would be good perhaps to focus on a particular area and subject to write about. However I’m not going to as I think that while it will evolve organically, the point is to see if I can write each day about something over writing about something each day, and there is a difference. Equally if it is an experiment to simply write, we corrupt ourselves the moment we worry more about numbers than the actual thing we’re doing. It may evolve organically in a certain direction which would be great and if after one year I am still writing and writing about a particular subject then the goal would be complete with a bonus thrown in.

So this blog is going to continue to be random and off the cuff. I would like it to improve, in the meantime though I’m happy; nothing is ever perfect so it is great that I can see improvement is necessary and hopefully make the effort to find it. It is even greater that I’m still here after what is probably about two months now and not got distracted and sacked it off.

Self-congratulatory piece…tick.

Well done me…prick.