'14

Hello Friends.

Now is the time of the year when people resolve to do things differently. We face the coming year with the best intentions and set goals for ourselves. I don't make New Year's Resolutions myself anymore, because in a weird way, I kind of do that week to week.

In that spirit, I'm going to break the format of this blog today and not give myself another Dream, Goal, and Plan to achieve or attempt or dismiss. Instead, I am just going to thank you, whoever is reading this. The fact that anybody views this silly blog at all is astonishing to me. According to the stats page of my Blogger account, my entries here have been viewed some 20 000 times. That doesn't mean 20 000 people, mind you, just 20 000 page views. In all likelihood, it's just Mom refreshing the same page over and over, saying, "Gotta get those views up for sonny-boy!"

Also, according to the same stats page, I have more readers in the US than in Canada. This doesn't make any sense, as I know so few American people. A few relatives might be reading, maybe some former school chums that moved down south, but who are the rest of you? If any Americans are reading this, exert your patriotism and identify yourself in the comments or something. Who ARE you? Could this be a spam thing? Is America full of spammers? Let's work from that.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not a strong finisher. I start a lot of projects full of vigor, but then laziness sets in, or a lack of return, or a degree of difficulty, and I bail. So I'm proud that my blog has lasted this long, and been somewhat consistent, at least in terms of quantity. It might not be smart or savvy to simply generate content for it's own sake; to blather on from my perch of privilege. Energy for no purpose is wasteful, I guess, but I will always have this record of my hard opinions and fickle fancies from about 2009 onward. And, of course, I plan to continue.

I kept diaries in younger years, but always threw them away. Entries I wrote in bald earnest at 16 were torn up in deep shame by the time I was 18, and so on. I wonder how much time will pass before I look back on these words with naked embarrassment. What will change in my life so that I might come upon these entries one day and think, "Oh for god's sake, enough!"?

The thing the internet generation has that no one before us can claim is an audience whenever we want one. Any person can have a blog, a website, a YouTube channel, or a Facebook page. We can all tweet at celebrities and goad them into reacting, or post pictures of our genitals for strangers to rate. We can bolster our existing opinions and find like-minded individuals and never challenge ourselves. Conversely, we can learn and grow and research and communicate in ways not possible twenty years ago. I hope I use this ubiquitous tool for more good than harm, but I don't know.

Instead of looking back on 2013 or looking ahead to 2014, I think the smartest thing I can do is be grateful right now. Let it never be said that I don't know how lucky I am, or that life is passing me by without me trying to grasp, analyze, or appreciate it. I do hope I'm smart enough to keep learning, working, and feeling. I wouldn't know how to thank the people in my life that enable me to do that. To have the family and friends that I do is to have the deck pretty stacked in my favour. I hope I prove myself worthy of such good fortune by trying to be a good man.

Reader, thank you for reading this blog, a little or a lot. Thanks for Sharing and Liking when something appealed to you, and thanks for refraining from talking shit when it didn't. Let's keep in touch, next week and the next week and the next. I'll be here if you will.

Until then, keep dreaming...