Comments are blog seeds

"Your writing has taken a different tone the past week or so...what's changed in you? You kind of have this sort of more relaxed attitude and you seem to be writing whatever it is that you're thinking."

- a Kimmyk comment

If you're anything like me (and pray that you're not) you have tiny, subtle personality shifts that take place depending on where you are. At work, we're "Workface", where we stand up a little straighter and things that are normally funny are borderline harassment. At home, we're probably most comfortable, and since it's our home, we act with a greater honesty and behave in some manner that is closer to who we are, really.

On our own, we can stretch the borders, but in company with other humans, there is a level of us that we really don't want people to know much about - whether it's some odd behavior or a particular TV show or food that we like that would cause embarrassment. Like Flip This House and Cauliflower.

If you're anything like me (yada yada) you struggle to find a balance between the Workface and the real you, which lies a great distance away from Workface. But, since Workface makes everything else possible, we are forced to deal with Workface. But, for now, let's keep Workface out of the discussion, since it is so far from who we really are as to be irrelevant.

Where we struggle the most is with the value that we place on what other people think of us. The sensitive among us value it highly, since causing discomfort or interference is a reflection on them - so they say. Usually, that causes us to hide our true feelings.

Most of all, we don't want anyone to think we're weird or unusual. Being an outcast is perhaps society's greatest punishment, since companionship is so highly sought after. So we behave normally, so that we'll be just like the ones from which we desire acceptance. Often, that normal behavior will wear on ones nerves to the point that he feels that it isn't worth the internal strife for the sake of being thought of as normal. I hate to break it to you, folks, but normal isn't what it's cracked up to be.

The blog setup is the ideal vehicle for people (now you are like me) who desire expression in its truest form. Here, my language is as colorful as is necessary, my attitudes as open as I can have them and every emotion is open to explore. It's perhaps the perfect mode of expression.

Recently, I've been contimplating my mortality and thinking that I haven't quite accomplished or experienced all the things I should, and part of the reason is that I haven't always been expressive enough or true enough to my feelings. It comes and goes.

Then, as I began thinking about post ideas, I found that most of the social topics have been covered here in one form or another. I was awash in repeated history.

So, like the space program, I stopped looking out and started looking in. There are way more topics in than out, and I've enjoyed ranting and venting for a while. I like the shorter thoughts and the stream of consciousness thing and trying to tie the junk in together.

Besides, the blog isn't as funny as it used to be, and if I'm not going to be funny, I don't want to just rant for rant's sake. Those people yell so much that eventually they disappear in their own mouthhole. I don't want that.

I think the blog is truer to its name if the posts are about what I'm thinking rather than what I think of something that has happened to someone else. Regardless of what's going on and what I think of it, one thing is for certain.

I couldn't be more comfortable here.