I used to write. I used to do quite a bit of it actually, but that was a long, long time ago. In elementary school, I always loved the creative writing assignments. In junior high and high school, I remember writing letters to family and friends, and I think there's even a journal floating around somewhere from that time where I would jot down stories, bad self-absorbed poetry and whatever else a hormone fueled teenage boy with insecurity issues felt needed to be archived. For a few years in high school I would make a yearly trip to Mexico to build houses with my friend's church youth group. At the end of each trip, I would write a short summary of my experiences there to send to all of the relatives who had helped sponsor me. Each episode was full of just enough humorous exaggeration and heartfelt introspection to entertain the fam and give them an incentive to send me money for the next year's trip.
Over the years I've picked up other creative outlets, but recently I've felt like I would like to start writing again. There's something about putting thoughts into words that scratches an itch not quite satiated by playing music, spending time in the kitchen, or working on electronics. The only things I've managed to write over the last couple of years, though, have been essays for scholarships and project summary reports for school; not quite the outlet I was thinking of. "But hey, blogs are a thing, why not do one of those?", I asked myself. It seemed like a good option, but did I really want to put the things I was writing out there for the world to see? After all, I follow a few blogs, mostly ones by friends and acquaintances, some by strangers with interests similar to mine. They're all well written, coherent and articulate, and I enjoy them...in other words, the bar has been set fairly high in my eyes. If I can't make a blog that's as interesting or informative, then what's the point? Why even do one at all? As it turns out, insecurity is not as easily shaken as the rest of the teenage baggage.
I watched a very interesting TED talk recently. The talk highlighted some research being done in behavioral psychology having to do with confidence and how it's perceived. It was moderately interesting hearing about how people who did things like practicing "assertive postures" several minutes before a job interview performed better than people who adopted "passive postures". The theory is that if a person's confidence can dictate their body language, then maybe the converse can be true and by forcing themselves to adopt a confident posture, they will in turn act more confident, whether they're aware of it or not. But the part of the talk that really interested me was the speaker's anecdote of being a top student who, after being accepted to an ivy league school, was in a car accident that left her partly brain damaged. After rehabilitation, she still went off to school, but had to work twice as hard to overcome her new learning disability, often having to repeat courses. When she finally got to graduate school after spending nearly twice as much time on her undergraduate degree than the average student, she felt like a fake; out of her depth among top students who all deserved to be there. To overcome her insecurities she decided she would "fake it until she made it", making it her mantra. By acting the part for long enough, she realized that she eventually didn't have to fake it anymore. She actually was the confident, intelligent academic she had wanted to be. She summed up her talk by changing her motto from "fake it until you make it" to "fake it until you become it."
Fake it until you become it. I like it! I can act like I'm comfortable with putting my thoughts out into the world wide interwebs by just doing it, and maybe someday I will be comfortable with it. But in the meantime, I get to write, I get to share some stuff, and maybe I'll get lucky and some people will read this and find it somewhat interesting. So this is me faking it. I haven't really decided what all I'm going to write about yet, but I can say that I had meant for this "introduction" to be a few short lines explaining the blog's title (getting to it, I swear!) and it's kind of exploded, so I think that's promising. There have been a lot of major life changes for me in the last several years (marriage, purchasing a home, graduating from college, and on and on), so there will probably be some perspective shared on these. I have lots of work anecdotes from my various career choices that ought to get some laughs, and in some cases will probably incite some queasiness. I'm sure I'll put some of my other creative endeavors on here at some point, so eventually there will be a nice collection of documented electronics builds, beer and food recipes, and home repair adventures.
So, what's with this title...
In my early twenties I had a job as a baker/pastry cook at a somewhat upscale delicatessen in NW Portland. We would listen to NPR on the weekends pretty much all morning long, and there was one episode of Car Talk that has stuck with me for the last decade. They were reading car related Haikus that their listeners had sent in. My favorite one by far was
"My best friend's last words,
while driving he said to me,
'Take the wheel, watch this...'"
It cracked me up at the time, and it still brings a smile to my face to recite it, even if just in my head. It's the story of someone doing something self-indulgent to impress his friend which ends up being the last thing he ever does. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe that's how this blog will end up. Sure, it seems like a good idea now, and it's certainly self-indulgent, but maybe this is as far as it goes. Maybe I get bored with this, maybe I just don't muster up the motivation or courage to make another entry. Meh, no big deal really, only my loss. But maybe it ends up turning out like how I hope; something cathartic for me and entertaining for others. Maybe it will be fun...
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