The Dim Star at the Back of the Galaxy

I've been blogging since late '97. This here is the sixth blog I've concerned myself with. This embarrassing thing is the first (god is it ever embarrassing). The second. The third. The fourth. The fifth.

I hate writing, because it leaves a record behind me, a trail of shoddy constructions and obvious metaphors. I grow, I change, and that comment I posted on MetaFilter last month looks so... naive. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never be happy with what I did five years ago, last year, or even yesterday. I'm not even happy about what I accomplished this morning, which is thankfully already marked to be written over on my hard drive.

But I can't stop writing, because I feel terrible when I do. I love the feeling of having written something, and if I read carefully over the awkward phases I've gone through and look closely at the overwrought language of my younger days, I can find a sentence or two that satisfy me.

Another contradiction, then - the story of my life. A guy who will give you the shirt off his back and eternally resent you for it. A boy loaded with talent but squandering it on video games and casual drug use throughout college. A father of two daughters who loves one and refuses to acknowledge the other. A son who struggles with confronting the long shadow cast by the patriarchs that preceded him, a shadow that exists only in his mind. I am an atheist with Buddhist leanings, who identifies strongly with the Christian point-of-view.

It makes sense that my job as resident manager is one that I enjoy so much: I play both tenant and landlord, a servant of two competing interests.

I was never very good at golf, because my follow-through is terrible.

I hope this helps.