My Very First Blog Post

I've committed to set aside an hour to write every day. It's been a long time since I've written, and I've defintely never done my writing inside an html document. I'm honestly considering just linking this to another blog, but the more I think about making a WordPress, the more I feel like it would defeat the purpose of this website entirely. The whole point of this website is to demonstrate competency and experience with CSS. If I can't make a simple blog (or lack the willingness to do so), how could I ask or expect people to pay me money to do so?. You see what I did there? The i tag. Crazy stuff, right?

Seriously though, this experience is really good for me; in the past hour-plus I've had to update the lists on my site, make a new style sheet for indentation (which doesn't seem to work - I'll fix that later), and mess around with linking it. I've never done any of this before; learning as you're going and all that.

So what would be better? The user experience of reading a well-formatted site, or the experience I will gain from struggling and learning how to make the site well-formatted (or designed the way I want it to look) on my own? I think I'm going to stick with the latter, even though it's a pain. At the end of the day, I'm just happy I get to write this in Vim, even if I have to use tags to format the text the way I want it (sorry-not-sorry Emacs fanbois).

The writing experience is alittle like LateX (is that how it's spelled? I think so). I had to write up homework proofs for my discrete math courses in LateX. It was an absolute pain, but once you got the hang of it, it felt pretty cool to be able to quickly generate a beautifully formatted document. Unfortunately, it's still a pain in the butt (I know, that's the third time I've said pain in as many paragraphs) to get images into the document.

Enough rambling. Why do I want to make this blog? I have three reasons:

• Gives me a reason to write.
• It's exciting to participate in the internet
• It can serve as a time capsule for future self

I'd find quote some author or something about the importance of artistic expression here, but I'm too lazy for that. Besides, what credibility would it give me to repeat the words of a successful person? It's not like I've shared that success myself. That's like mixing up a bunch of random liquids in a bottle and writing "Sprite" on it in Sharpie. Doesn't make it Sprite. Anyways, my mind clearly goes a million miles a minute, so it's really, really helpful for me to get practice organizing my thoughts. I used to think that my "spontaneity" was charming or entertaining but as I get older (I turn twenty-six in two months) I realize that time is valuable. I don't want to be responsible for wasting other people's time just as I don't want them to waste mine. So it's become increasingly important for me to just get my ideas out, without worrying about the words I use or how I phrase it. Maybe that sounds crazy. But hear me out.

My thesis is this: Who cares how it gets done as long as it gets done. There's a footnote, of course : done as well as possible, as soon as possible. My dad has made me increasingly sensitive to this because of his age. He turned eighty-one a few months ago. I'll go into the logistics of all that eventually, but the point is that if he's taught me one thing, it's the value of time. The older he gets, the more he cares about spending time with me. He and I both know that his time on Earth is coming to an end. So is mine (and yours!), but the extra time I have compared to him allows me the opportunity to take risks and make mistakes. So make a mistake. Hell, I've made several mistakes writing this blog post. In the maybe thirty minutes I've spent clacking away at my keyboard, I've mispelt (does that have two s'? Who cares!) many words and felt kind of embaressed about my lack of direction. But that's okay. I'm writing. And what's more, I'm writing for an audience.

It's been several years since I've dated but I've asked plenty of girls out in the mean time, and the majority of them have said no. The funny thing about getting rejected, though is that it makes it easier to get rejected again. There's also no better way to learn self-love than when you really have no other choice. That's not some sort of weird masturbation joke, by the way. I really mean it. But in any case, I bring that up because when I told my friend about the most recent rejection (and there won't always be rejections - that's mathematically not true possible :^) ) he congratulated me. He said, "Good job. You're no longer sitting on the sidelines of life". In a way, this blog is the same thing. I'm out there, making my ripple, contributing my ramblings to the vastness of the interwebs. It feels good to be a part, even if no one will ever read this.
I need to cut this short as my timer just beeped at me. I think the last point is pretty self explanatory anyways. If you read this and enjoyed it, do us both a favor and set aside some time - be it 5, 10, 30 minutes - and write. You'll enjoy it if you let yourself.