It could have been my youthful love of spandex that led me to join the gymnastics team as a kid, but most likely it was it my fondness of the foam pit, where a strapping lad could catapult through the air and land in a soft sea of unbroken bones.
Regardless the motivating force, my relationship with gymnastics was love-hate. I had this ongoing battle with my instructors. I refused, hated to do, and only ever half-ass did, my presents. Presents in gymnastic are when after a trick you stand tall with your arms raised to the sky before an applauding audience.
I haaaaa-ated this. “Luke,” my instructors used to yell as I ran towards the foam pit, “You forgot to do your presents again!
My unwillingness stemmed from the fact that I was not in gymnastics for the audience or applause. I cared only for flying into the foam pit.
As with my presents, I used to have the same sinking reluctance towards the thought of having a personal blog. Writing for me is that feeling of flying through the air and knowing that the landing will be soft and preserving. Yet, for years I went to great lengths to avoid having a place my writing could call home.
In person and online I heard other writers pontificating on the importance of having a personal website, a clearinghouse with links to published pieces and a place to feature my own writing.
A few times I came close, went so far as to register a URL for a blog, but for years something prevented me from going all the way. A part of it was I was afraid of the perceived perception of self-absorption. Also terms like “branding,” monetization,” “affiliate programs,” and “Search Engine Optimization” make me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
But if I were able to speak to the 2011 me, I would say: “Come on dude, worrying about a perceived perceptions is right up there with boycotting the beach because… you know… a coconut might fall from a tree and kill you. And for the love of Shiva, wear your dancing pants more often!”
If I wanted to keep flying through the air and landing in the foam pit, sooner or later, I was going to have to face these terms and just get over all this silliness.
It was at Travel Blog Exchange 2012 in Keystone, CO where I got this much-needed punch to the gut. At last year’s TBEX when our “wolf pack” (long story) was not getting kicked out of a hotel gym at 4am for filming a music video wearing little more than ScotteVests, when we were not drinking whiskey in the woods, singing like maniacs and howling at the moon, when we were not climbing ladders to our hotel’s roof to smoke cigarettes and watch shooting stars, we were learning how to be better at what we did. The message of the conference sunk deep enough that I finally realized that I was missing out on something awesome, standing at the edge of the biggest foam pit ever, but never jumping in.
I’m writing this from a Greyhound bus leaving the 2013 TBEX which was held in Toronto. Like last year, the conference was once again debacherously energizing in countless wonderful ways. For me the conference is also the marker of my blog’s birthday. Today it turns one year old. I’m grateful to TBEX for the encouragement it gave me to go out and blog. One year and 150 posts later, it turns out I love this shit out of blogging (Fourth best part is you can swear when it’s your own blog and no one edits it out [although your mother does send you emails asking if it’s really necessary to write like that]{come on mom, admit it adds color}]).
Having your own blog allows you to bypass the gatekeeping of editors. Editors are wonderful to have, and many have helped me become a much better writer. But a lot of writing simply does not have a good place to live outside of a personal blog. This post is a good example of that.
My overarching point is simple: Finally there is no one stopping me from adding to my writing as many pictures of squirrels playing banjos as my squirrel-playin’-a-banjo heart desires (a great many).
Having a blog is like having a life and realizing that we have the freedom to live it any way we want. My blog tends to be less focussed than people say I should have it be. That probably costs me some opportunities, but having a place to write my heart away makes me happy.
In his letter to his daughter, it seems that even Benjamin Button had something to say about blogging:
There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it.
TBEX, thanks for another great one. See you next time.
