a blog, a bar, and a confession
kia ora,
my name is River, and this is my blog.
it's not my first blog.
my previous blog was hosted on another platform. I was made aware that that platform was a nazi bar, and I swiftly resolved to move to another platform.
that's what I'd like to tell you.
what actually happened was I heard I was in a nazi bar, I looked around and noticed nobody else seemed to be leaving, so I stayed put. only after someone I follow agitated enough about it did I decide to actually leave the bar.
anyone who's had a conversation with me for longer than 30 minutes has heard about how my life turned around when I started making decisions based not on what I thought would make others accept me; but on what I could accept, what would let me sleep at night. and it is true: I started to do that.
but it's clear not all my decisions are made by my higher self. I still eat meat and fish despite knowing they're produced unethically. I buy plastics I could have avoided despite knowing when I dispose of them they'll take thousands of years to break down. I've smoked cigarettes in the past and probably will again in the future despite knowing tobacco companies are evil.
imagine I wrote here several paragraphs about how it's easy to make bad decisions when they're socially acceptable, about how capitalism wears us down and corrupts us spiritually, and how ultimately everyone doing their imperfect best is better than one person doing everything perfectly.
the point is: I have a new blog. and I didn't want my first post to be just something reposted from my last blog, and I don't want this blog to be like my last blog.
my last blog had already died, of causes entirely my own. I ended up with a list of things I felt needed to be written, but that I didn't want to write. I set myself a bar for quality so high I'd never reach it, and so ill-defined it would move if I ever did. my drafts all felt forced. what gives?
when I've got something on my mind I can write hundreds of words spread across dozens of microblog posts, all edited so each part of an idea fits within the character limit. but I can't write a stinking blog post about something that obviously needs to be written about? oops, it looks like I mistook a misplaced sense of obligation to do something for a desire to actually do it, again.
this time, I'm gonna write what comes naturally. not stiff, hyperlink-filled think pieces; but (lightly-edited) emotionally-driven trains of thought. whatever I'm ranting about elsewhere, slightly longer-form. sometimes I'll run them by someone else first. I'm also going to repost all the stuff that was on my last blog, maybe with some changes.
hopefully if you were subscribed to my last blog you're seeing this in your inbox right now. if you weren't, you can subscribe now if this sounds like something you'd like to read. expect an update every time I try to replace sleep with stimulants.
- River