Baby's First Blog Post

What’s going on here? #

I write about my interests. #

As of right now, that is really about the gist of it! I’ve wanted to start a blog for a long time. However, I never really thought I had anything worth sharing. And, honestly, not much has changed. One thing that has changed, though, is my perspective on whether or not that matters. Turns out, it doesn’t. But something does…

A confession #

I have a confession: I hated writing papers in high-school. When I had to, I gave minimal effort, minimal interest, and didn’t think twice about the fact that I believed these papers were meaningless. This was largely my own fault. I’ve never been a terribly motivated person, and homework brought out this trait of mine doubly so.

My environment didn’t help all that much, though, either. I was never taught the joy of writing. I never witnessed that conveying something interesting or important to yourself or others through the written word can be enjoyable, satisfying, and rewarding.

So how and when did that part of me change? Probably in my sophomore year in college. I went to a general education college with a focus in graphic design. One of the required courses for all students was an English class. It turned out that the class largely focused on writing papers. I was not excited.

But what was different about that class from what I received in high-school? I’m quite positive I’ve figured out how to answer that question, and I’ll admit that it took me a while. I’m quite sure it all comes down to interest. Nothing in this world can quite feel meaningful or worthwhile without some amount of interest, whether that is in regards to something you are doing, making, reading, consuming, or writing.

Now, when I started that class, I didn’t go into it with interest. No, I was going to treat this class like all of my other English courses. I was going to cruise through this class with minimal effort and a satisfactory grade. No, this time it all came down to my professor. Sure, he was passionate about writing, but I sure wasn’t, and no amount of kind words towards the activity were going to change my mind. However, what he did do differently than my past teachers, even if the topic I was writing about was absolutely ridiculous ("Is McDonald’s Really That Bad?"), was that he showed interest in my topics and my writing, despite my lack of it. He asked questions about how writing was going. He gave suggestions on where and how to research beyond the usual “go to the library”. He not only let me know what I was doing wrong when proofing my papers, but also remarked on things he found interesting about how I phrased something or a bit of research I found. He read into things that I didn’t even mean to be there, which made me interested in my own writing! Essentially, he made writing those papers feel worthwhile, because I found that someone, even myself sometimes, was actually getting something out of reading them.

And I’ve been craving that feeling ever since… I just didn’t know it yet.

Making it happen #

So here’s what I’m doing with this blog. I’m writing for the fun of it. I’m writing about my interests because that makes writing interesting. And rather than relying on a professor’s feedback to keep me motivated to keep writing, I think that my own interest will be enough to keep writing. And if you find any interest while reading what I write, well then that’s just icing on the cake, isn’t it?