January 1, 2018

Here We Go Again

I am a pendulum that swings widely, damaging everything in my path. My own boredom with self and need for constant change forces me to make rash decisions, that I can only maintain by my own stubbornness and commitments to promises made. And now after my year off social media, I am like a waking coma patient, unsure who to be or how to act. What matters? Who is cares? Will they still listen?

I am sure that some people are expecting at least some small epiphanies, from a year-long social media cleanse, and a better person, or a more thoughtful writer, or documenter of such things, might have spent the year chronicling such lessons, but to be honest, I only allowed myself the luxury of a downward spiral into the boredom.

Although, I wanted to use my time away from Facebook and Twitter as a chance to finish my novel, create more art and really connect with friends and family, instead I got pretty fat (which is unusual from a really skinny guy), played video games (a pathetic 6-10 campaign on Madden) and watched way too much Youtube (mostly late shows making fun of Trump, which gave me the right amount of dopamine to carry through.)

My nights were spent not doing much of anything. I didn’t write anything of worth and as the months went by, I had a hard and harder time looking at myself in the mirror. Not only did my hiatus, not motivated me to be my better self, it actually uncovered a slovenly person, I didn’t know was there and whom I didn’t really appreciate getting to know.

So what will this year look like?

Will I write a post everyday like a year ago? Will I finally finish this damn Young Adult Novel. Will I get back to running? Will these push-up continue to make me feel better about myself? Will I stop eating cheese again and get back on the Vegan horse? Will anyone care?

I think, I will try and stop the pendulum and just take things as they come. There doesn’t seem an urgency to make any big proclamations at this time. I’ve spent 43 years trying to figure out what the hell makes me tick and I suspect this year will be no different.

I know that I am excited about properly growing a beard.

Yeah, you read that right. I’ve been watching Youtube videos and I bought a beard comb along with beard oil and mustache wax. Turns out I have been shaving my neck wrong all these years,

I look forward to running again, not to train for races like I was doing, but just to get back in the habit of putting one foot in front of the other on a regular basis.

I ordered a book to help me re-write my book. It is still at around 35,000 words, but I hope to get it to 50K before summer and start the process of re-writing it to include a plot etc…

2017 was a year of rest and laziness. I hope that 2018 things pick up a little. As for lessons I learned when I was gone?

Here are a few in no particular order:

• Our social media connections connect us and are valuable, but are paper thin and it doesn’t take long to be forgotten. I felt like I disappeared in a few weeks.

• Out thoughts and opinions are not as important as we think and no one really cares about them. And if we don’t articulate them, they simply disappear and come back in other forms at a later time.

• There are plenty of ways to waste time and be lazy that have nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter.

• Change is hard. Changing habits. Changing who you are into who you want to be, takes work and never happens on its own.

• The Oakland Raiders will always let me down, even when it appears they might not.

• Parenting a middle school kid is harder than it looks.

I guess that’s it for now. We have time to get reacquainted. A few people have reached out and said they missed my voice, and in 2018 as a forty three year old man trying to make sense of this world, that is worth something. Thank you. I missed you too. Nice to be back.

2 comments:

  1. Nice to read you back. I never unsubscribed from the blog.

    I respect the courage to do what you did, and expect no epiphanies nor world changing insight. You are till Jabiz, with maybe different hair. No biggee.

    You did not disappear, I appreciate the email updates and I could peek in time to time via flickr. Look how people chimed in on your tweets last night. That is not insignificant.

    We lost Tom Petty but glad yo see Jabiz is coming around some more (hey there was no guitar playing in the December video, what's with that, you are damn good)

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