One of the bestest people I know used to give me excellent, optimistic, supportive advice. He would tell me that I should write books. I would say: "what should I write about?" And he would answer, "whatever you want to write about!" His enthusiasm got to me -- not because I didn't want to write (I did), but because I didn't have something I was burning to write about, and I really thought I should. Becoming a brilliant author can't happen if you don't have anything all that brilliant to say. So I put his book-writing plan for me on hold. Every time I'm told that I should write books (he's not the only one), I'm stymied at the same point: do I really have anything worth saying, that I can say differently (better?) than anyone else!?! Maybe even now I have figured out that I probably really do...but that's a recent sense on my part. In the meantime, I have spent years writing academic papers, editing application essays, collecting family memories, a little ghost-writing, a lot of email, and plugging away at the preliminaries to a distressingly delayed doctorate.
Then, a few days ago, another one of the bestest people I know told me I should blog. I scoffed at her (she didn't mind): "I'm not going to blog!" (don't be silly). As usual, I didn't want to write, or blog, unless I had something to say. More, something bloggable to say. But the next morning, without doing any thinking about it, a lightbulb appeared over my head: a blog title (yup, "Choices"). I realized, with a modicum of glee, that I do have something bloggable to blog about. Decisions. Choices. I found myself conceiving of all kinds of blog-post topics before I even made my way to blogger.com (whether anyone wants to read what I think I have to say remains to be seen, but it's almost beside the point).
Abstract ideas; concrete options....The way they permeate nearly every waking minute of every day, whether or not we think about them. Because there are so many kinds of decisions, there's plenty to say (and they become a frame to discuss just about anything). Because I've done a lot of conscious, conscientious deciding (as those who have suffered my deliberations know all too well, and those who see me at my most decisive may not realize), I've decided that I'm qualified to say it. But what I have to say is not sociological or linguistic or religious analysis (though those disciplines may pop up, who knows?). Nor am I thinking to "explore the theme of 'choices' in a new Greatest American Novel. Rather, I've decided (yes, consciously, if surprisingly quickly) to explore all kinds of choices. Also the issues and circumstances and consequences and who knows what else, as it comes up, pertaining to decisions.
By blog.
