Ideas

Ever since I first started journaling all those years ago I always struggled to write something original, I felt like I was always coming back to the same topics, writing about the same things each time, bitching about things not changing.....

I guess it's about time I try and create some structure to my writing, I don't want to be writing about the same thing for years and years, i'd feel like I wasn't getting anywhere. I guess when I was younger I didn't exactly have a whole lot going on in my life so there wasn't too much to write about. That's only slightly the case now though, I think in some cases i've matured quite a bit and in other aspects of my life I probably haven't changed too much.

Even though in real life it may not seem like I have much to say I know that online or even just on paper I feel like I can write quite a bit, even if it's just rambling, that's still something to me. I've never been structured in my writing though.

There are so many different topics to choose to write about, getting coherent ideas on paper or in a blog is going to be a new thing for me. Structured writing is a must have for any journalist or fiction author, it's an essential skill for anyone that has to write for a living, or even just for communicating ideas.

If you were trying to read instructions for building something you don't want them to be garbled, you don't want to have to jump between pages to get to the right step.

I feel like I can say my whole life has been one big unstructured mess, from the start line to where I am now I don't feel like i'm in front of everything, i'm meeting one hurdle after another just a little bit too late. I should have predicted some things sooner, I should have known that I would need to make some decisions that could affect my future yet I put them off for too long.

I have a list of ideas that I would like to write something about, I think I could make a good enough attempt at them. I know i'll make mistakes and there may be times where i'm not making a whole lot of sense, that's ok, I know i'm going to make mistakes and I know that my writing not be the best or I might not have anything ground breaking to say, that's also ok, my opinion matters.

What do I believe in, what are my passions?

So what's new in my life since I last posted over 10 days ago??? Hmm, let me see, oh yeah not a whole lot! After a tough few weeks of work I had the weekend off to relax and this week shouldn't be too bad work wise so I can at least have some time to myself and maybe actually get a chance to go to the gym or read, I haven't made much time for myself to read lately and i'm getting even further behind when it comes to all of the magazines i'm subscribed to. Hopefully I can get up to date on everything I read but that sounds unlikely at this rate!

Apart from work I haven't done a whole lot since last time. I finally had another night out with my friends, it seems like i'm only out for special occasions like birthdays or engagement parties, I guess that what happens when you get older and your friends and family start to plan for the rest of their lives beyond university and the day to day things. I did have a good time out on Saturday with my friends, even though it was sort of a typical night out I will still appreciate those types of experiences with my friends, just going out to a bar and having good conversations with people and listening to music. 

Is that all that has happened in my life in the past 10 days??? I got new glasses! My vision is getting worse again so I had to get another eye test where I found out that I needed another pair of new glasses, the change was quite noticeable though. The optician showed me what my old prescription was compared to the new one that I would have, there was a definite change and I knew it wouldn't be fun walking around for another year or so before I could tell it was getting bad enough for me to make my own appointment for an eye test rather than getting the reminder that I was due for one.

Now that the day to day updates are done I think it's time to get more serious. I know I probably don't think or talk about current issues enough, there are a lot of things I don't have an opinion on or maybe I just don't know enough about a subject to have anything new or worthwhile to say about them.

I guess I should really start by talking about what does interest me and what subjects I want to know more about.

I know when I was younger all I really read in my free time was Military Fiction books about war or action and adventure. I know I was barely touching the surface when it came to good literature. Those fiction books wouldn't win any awards, they were easy reads without a lot of depth, I was comfortable with what I was reading so for a long time I didn't try to branch out into anything more complex. At some point though I started reading less Military Fiction and more true stories about the military and real battles which actually required me to try and make sense of what had happened in the world before my time.

Looking back over 10 years ago my bookshelf was mostly filled with Military fiction and non-fiction. I guess military non-fiction is still classified as history so at least I was getting some understanding about the world. 

I don't know how but after a while my interests changed to general history and even science. I knew that I would never have a great understanding about all of the topics that I was reading about, that's still the case now, however I knew that what I was reading interested me and I always felt that there was more and more to read, more fascinating new topics to learn about. I read books about archaeology, nature, physics, space, you name it I probably would have read something about it. Here's where the problems began. I would always move on far too quickly from subject to subject, I started leaving books unfinished because I saw another one that interested me, I still have this problem, I know that there are quite a few books in my library that I haven't finished or even started!!

Basically me when I was younger, this video perfectly describes what I was like when it came to books in my teen years. it's still a fairly accurate representation of what i'm like to this day, i'm 28 now you would think I would be able to narrow my focus to a few topics that interest me, but no, I still find myself going from topic to topic without getting a good enough understanding of the fundamental issues and the basic concepts of things like science or nature. There is one video series that I actually made it to the end of that I found very interesting, Crash Course World History, like the title suggests, it's a crash course, John Green the who created this series takes you through thousands of years of human history, starting with The Agricultural Revolution, Ancient Egypt, the major religions of the world and ending with Globalisation. 

Although i've read books covering some of the topics in this series there was and still is a lot more I can learn, there are still countless videos and courses that I can participate in, I know that I need to get back to using Khan Academy, it was a great resource for me for a while. My maths skills were rather lacking so I decided to start their Mathematics course from the very beginning, luckily I did manage to master that, I managed to count to 10 without having to use my fingers, so I have that going for me....

End of part one!