the-pen-is-mighty-and-so-are-you

[the-pen-is-mighty-and-so-are-you]

An opening message

Why am I doing this? That’s the question behind the eyes that stare at these arbitrary letters appearing onscreen. Why am I writing this blog? Why do I want to do this? What is the outcome I want? Who am I? Why am I?

And, as you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking, “Shit, not another existential crisis.”

(Same.)

But I’m asking this to myself, me, that person in the mirror (figuratively speaking, I’m looking at a laptop right now), because I have been meaning to get round to writing this blog for fucking ages, and has it happened? No. Why? Well, the issue in question seems to be the issue I have with everything I procrastinate – making too big a deal about it.

I’ve been having grand visions of this blog, you see. It may seem silly, on this free real estate site of chaos, but I have been reaching high up on the shelf of expectations when it comes to crafting my posts. My overall goal: Get out there as writer, demonstrate that I can write things.

To put it explicitly, I want to do a PhD, and it’s handy if you can show that you have the capability to take time and write something that could be published. I.e., you have a link you can send prospective supervisors and go, “Here it is! The proof that I can stick it out for multiple years on a project!” The problem with that seems to be I’m writing this going, “Oh no, how is this possibly going to live up to any kind of scrutiny.” Boom, added pressure, creates impossible task, leads to months of procrastination.

And here we are.

Once again, I’ve found the answer lies in saying, effectively, “Fuck it.” I say again because, asterisk moment, years ago I experienced crippling procrastination when it came to creative writing projects, and found the only way to overcome that was to channel my need for expression into what I named a ‘Fuck it Diary’. The rule with it is, there are no rules (I’m sure that’s a famous quote from somewhere); you just write whatever you want, however you want, in brightly coloured pen, drawing doodles, sticking in bits from your day, and brainstorming at random. What’s that, you say? That actually sounds like a mishmash between a junk journal and a bullet journal? We as humans can never possibly have an original thought?

Mayhaps, that could be the case, but sometimes it’s just a matter of reframing something so that it works for each of our quirky brains. For me, saying “Fuck it,” is about letting go of all the pressures I’ve put on something, it’s about moving on from a state of inertia to actually doing the thing, forgetting about the little perfectionist squawking from the dark corner of my own brain and reaching for just any standard, because any standard of a completed action is better than a lack of standard due to an incomplete action. Write that shitty first draft. Write shitty first blog posts. Because then at least, you’ve started the thing.

So, here’s my thing. I have a few aims with this, it’s really a way for me to keep in touch with my academic side and talk about things I find interesting. Oh, I’m an anthropologist, I forgot to mention! (shitty first draft, what can I say) Actually I’m not sure if I can call myself that as I currently work at Tesco, but I did spend five years studying the subject and have so far done two research projects. I’m hoping to talk about all that a whole lot more in upcoming posts, including explaining what social anthropology is, so I have a handy link I can send to questioning relatives.

My other thing is, I’m working on a novel, although I’m verrrrry early on in the writing-the-first-shitty-chapters, still-got-a-fuck-tonne-of-research-to-do, phase, so I might also talk about that.

Er, yeah, I think that’s everything. I was hoping for this blog to be a lot more formal, to be in more academic language, and maybe I’ll have a go at that further down the line, but for now, I’m enjoying this style of bishboshing out on the keyboard whatever I’d say to a close friend. Yeah, ��bishbosh’. Did I mention I’m British?

Anyway, take care, reader. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and that this post possibly encouraged you to say “Fuck it” about something (If it did, pray tell). Until next time!