Lurking

I have always wanted to write, but I had no encouragement or inspiration so it became something to loathe. High school being the barrier to entry for all things, was not particularly kind to a kid who’s only interest at the time was smoking dope. In hindsight I was searching for an outlet, a place I could control and gain sure footing in a world that offered none, a place where I could effectively process and understand the shit going around me.

Working in an office became so monotonous that after 6 months of my first job, I began to surf the internet for weeks at a time with reckless abandon. For one, I just didn’t like what I was doing and began to regret my career of choice. Up until that point I was still trying (and still am) to find my niche in this world and as I saw my peers expand themselves geographically and mentally, I came to realization that this was what I was seeking all along, mental expansion for emotional intelligence. The job I hated was at least banking me a fairly decent salary, so I was allowed certain things to slide, like an entry level engineering job that sucked the soul out of you.

Mental expansion was the goal, but execution was easier said than done. Lurking on the Internet can be a learning experience that offers many lessons. This was how I discovered blogs and blogging. Before paying any mind to the writings of others through a blog, I was regretfully entrenched in updating MySpace, where misrepresentation happens. MySpace is a vehicle for presenting a version of oneself, this version, a facade at the discretion of the user, that only presents what the user allows to project of themselves, is something I never fully embraced. Reading the writings of others for me, the thoughts and perspective offered more value than staring at vomit that is a MySpace page layout.

This realization came 2 years ago and I can honestly say unequivocally that I have been lurking all this time. Not the type of lurking that would make Larry the L2 perp proud of, but rather lurking in admiration for all the wonderful stories and fresh perspectives that I have come to admire and respect but too lame to try out myself. So, in a sense, I felt I was not worthy of starting a blog myself. Going back to the original thought, I was unsure of how I would approach creative writing or even capturing my daily exposure to all things life.

Ten months into my entry level gig, I traded in the civil engineering post for the wonderfully chaotic world of clinical research, and this is where I was thrown into a cubicle farm so devoid of character that after 8 weeks of eye gouging and in flagrant contempt for the job, I fell back to my old ways, surfing the internet for weeks at a time. Only this time, I happened to come across a few blogs that just inspired me. inspired me to express my thoughts through writing, forget grammar and prose, just write whatever feels natural.

As it turned out, following a few bloggers snowballed into joining discussions and adding comments. This became an outlet for which made my work days shorter and seemed to motivate my creative self. As I thought over what concentration I should focus for a new blog, I digressed back into my lurking ways, for I didn’t believe I was an expert on much of anything to have a blog focusing on a discussion topic.

It finally occured to me that the only way to process the world around me was to capture in writing, things that inspire me, current events, random shit and everything in between, the good, the bad and the ugly. Fast track to early 2008 and anything is better than the process of constantly posting additions to a facade in which we all know are never rooted in foundaton.