I wrote the first post on this blog almost exactly one year ago.
I was rereading the post today. Here are some words from it:
“I’m going to try to write one post each week… I’m also going to create and release one song each month.”
– Naive Past Jon
And then here are some things I’ve done in the past twelve months:
- Written 22 posts on this blog
- Released two songs
Well. Clearly, my plans have gone awry.
In fairness to Past Jon, I did hedge my bets a bit; I included the word “try” in that first ambitious statement, and I wrote a few sentences saying, in effect, “We’ll see how it goes.” So at least I made a preemptive attempt to assuage my future guilt.
But still, if I’m honest, I feel a little ashamed to have fallen so far short of what I said I would do. There’s surely a lesson here: that you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, maybe. Or that you should have grace for yourself when you break your word. Or that, if you want to really commit to churning out 52 blogs posts and one song each month, it requires that you quit working, stop playing pickleball, and enroll into a monastery.
I don’t know. What I do know is that, a year later, the core sentiment from that first post is still true: “I’m going to write… I can’t stop writing songs.”
This fall, I’ve carved out two hours on my Google calendar each Wednesday morning to write, and I’ve blocked out a couple of days this month to work on the music. I have more modest expectations for how many songs I can finish over the next 12 months, and I’ve learned enough to avoid making another naive commitment to some certain number of blog posts.
But also, I’m going to write. Because I can’t shake that need, and I don’t really want to.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
