The most recent thing I’ve actually managed to hold onto was a portion of a conversation I overheard at my favorite local coffee spot. It was one of those occasions where it was hard not to listen to what was being said, whether because the overheard party is too close or the exchange too interesting to ignore. (Though on this particular night it was most likely that I felt very strongly that I had seen this guy before.) Shortly before I started to wind up by laptop charger and head home for the evening, a statement from this nearby table caught my attention.
“This is what I want to do for the rest of my life if you can't tell.”
The narrative so far had been by all appearances an excited, or at least positive, one, but this small sentence stuck for some reason. He had been talking about his job, I think, and about leadership and teaching. But there was something about the phrasing, the even and optimistic tone of his voice. It was worth noting. In his mind, he had found what he was supposed to do — his purpose, you might say — and he felt that his conviction should be fairly obvious to others, if only by a simple conversation. He was implying that you should be able to tell.
That got me thinking. How many people can actually say that they have found that one direction they want to travel for remainder of their life? Or more importantly, how many people are confident in the fact that their passions and interests are apparent to those who aren't occupying the same headspace? You could take that to a very intellectual or spiritual level, which I completely trust to be worthwhile. But what I want to do with this journal of sorts is to track my creative interests – in all honesty, the things I hope to be doing "for the rest of my life.” So I want to treat this as a means of cataloguing and recording. I’d like to have something somewhat tangible I can point to, something that I have poured into that accurately reflects the constant flow of things I am fascinated by, mostly in art and fashion, if only to make my own thought processes more coherent. I want it to be personal, but not by showing the world my "personal style" or arranging a collage of things-I-wish-I-had-but-don't. Hopefully I'll bring a few thoughtful opinions and — at the risk of using an overused word — curate a selection of compelling images, ideas, and writing. Hopefully it will be personal in that, even if no one ends up following along, I'll have something to back me up if ever I make a statement similar to the one I overheard.
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