Ah, the point in every blog where the initial luster fades, leaving you, your computer, and the realization that you didn’t actually have anything to say!

But is writing truly about having something to say?

I have always had a hard time writing with something to say because I look back upon what I wrote and can’t help but feel redundant. I gain passion and momentum enough to sit down and write about what’s on my mind, something that’s really bugging me, and as I finish what I wanted to write I can’t get away from the feeling that my writing has somehow made the issue… smaller. I find myself saying “did I really care about this enough to write about it?”

In fact, aren’t most classic novels written for the joy of writing; perhaps to make some money, perhaps for the exercise of putting pen to paper, finger to typewriter… and isn’t the meaning then ascribed by the populace upon reading, the deep details and metaphor being given posthumously to the text by critics, by others?

To write is to write. Tell a story, say some words that are beautiful, be vague, be explicit; but through it all discover that sometimes you don’t have anything to say, that the purpose for your writing comes after you begin writing, not before. It brings to mind the idea behind the age old question “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” in that – especially in the blogging world – we want to put the cart before the horse. We want to move forward with an idea in a moment of inspiration – perhaps I’ll write about this topic or that – but when the road gets hard and we become stuck we leave the idea by the wayside: Left to die, never having fully lived.

I originally set out with this blog to be a “current trend” “lifestyle” blog – a way to practice my SEO skills on a real site, and to try and get ranked on search engines. But these inspirations last only so long in a world where the “current trend” today might not be the current trend tomorrow, and so I’ve become determined to accept this and let my mind wander. There is both a beauty and a tragedy to losing your path, and instead of using this blog to discipline myself into staying on track, dwelling on the tragedy of a lost cause, I want to find the beauty in it. Like the Elliot Smith song.