Random Generator: Journaling

I get writer’s block frequently. Coming up with interesting stuff seems to take more effort every week. Lately what works for me is journaling. Journaling is my ace in the hole. It’s what I come back to when nothing else works. It’s what feels right. It’s where my passion first started and my craft began taking shape. It’s the place I return to for inspiration. It’s like a long satisfying exhale, like the kind a dog makes when he completely relaxes and splays out on the floor.

 Nothing works better for material than personal experience and it’s why (looking back) may favorite pieces, the ones I loved to write are about me. That’s right “Me”; the center of my universe, or so it seems. Oddly I don’t like to talk about myself or what is going on in my life. Yet it remains the richest source of material for most writers who write what they know. I hate when Facebook ‘asks’ me to post where I’ve been, what I’m doing or to ‘check in’. I don’t think about it and don’t want to.

This isn’t a personal gripe against people who share a lot. Some are just good at it and enjoy telling others what's up. The question I always ask myself is “Does anyone really care that I went to Braums and got mint chocolate chip shake?” which happens a lot by the way. Have you had one? Common, right! Or do people care that I voted Republican and think the Clintons are a southern version of the Corleones? I backed off the political stuff this last year. I would say it had to do with the nastiness of the race and the lack of a decent human being at the top of either ticket but, no. It was just hard to wave a flag for Trump or tuck my ears beneath a MAGA hat.

 Trump is hardly Cicero despite Hillary’s crime family bona fides.

 American politics have seen nastier more personal phases but none of them have occurred during my lifetime. The Jackson/Adams campaign of 1828 is regarded as one of the dirtiest most personal election seasons in our short history. Adams was called a ‘pimp’ while Jackson got accused of marrying another man’s wife (a technicality in Rachel’s past). Personal attacks by partisan newspapers were the norm. Today we think of newspapers and media outlets as slanted but not openly partisan, at least we didn’t until this year.

Actually the more I think about it the more that fateful period in history matches the cage match from last year.

Most of the time my reluctance to share is rooted in just that “Does anyone care attitude?” and I usually opt out. I don’t burn white hot over issues that would have fired me up years ago. It only takes seeing Christians executed for their faith by terrorists groups like ISIS to put events in perspective. Suddenly my interests and fascinations over political parties and the games they play blur in comparison to the horror of persecution. It isn’t that my passions aren’t important but the biblical trials suffered by Christians around the world stand in stark relief to casual day to day politics. If one isn't heartsick over the news that Christians villages are torched or that young women are raped by ISIS jihadis than they don’t have a heart. After news like that it is hard to get exercised over corporate tax rates or national health insurance.

The other side is feeling guilty over the relative ease of life in America. We can certainly get caught up in the misery of war, famine and persecution, dangerously thinking nothing in the Western world is important because misery exists somewhere all the time “…while you stuff your face with waffles!”

 In the nineties movie Greedy one of the characters is renowned for telling Uncle Joe not to buy grapes because the farmers were treating the labor like slaves, overworking and underpaying them. He is a classic hippie who eschews the greedy despotic lifestyle of the rich self-made man. At one point Uncle Joe tells him during a chance encounter thirty years later that he is “Still eating grapes.” The message being I’m still living my life and enjoying it, so buzz off. 

No one likes to get ripped for enjoying life and sometimes the dreariness of the world can turn to guilt over a blessed situation. Many can point to those who care about suffering far away but can’t show up to work on time or pay their bills. Certainly a place exists for ‘Enjoying all things richly’ but these peeks behind the curtain are God’s way of reminding us that a larger world exists. We need to be mindful of how we spend time and money. 

So in the interest of journaling I started writing this blog a few years ago to get better at writing and explore different topics. Self-reflection is the key for me. If not for a sense that self-reflection leads to improvement I wouldn't know how else to proceed. 

 Companies do this as a matter of principle: What happened? What was the result? What can we do better next time? Reflection is natural for anyone hoping to improve whatever they do. I never expect this particular one to turn into a blog post since my reflection is just that most times, a personal measure of where I am at in my progress. My mind seems fixated on ‘progress’ as it relates to. . . well, everything lately. From my workout routine and growth of my yard shrubs to the Trump’s presidency, nothing seems insignificant. Growth is stunted and haphazard but plodding forward (with Trump I mean).

My shrubs are fine.