This blog has long been a side project for me. I pop in and write stuff when I'm feeling it, then I disappear for a few months into the abyss. When I look at what I've done here, the disappearing moments are kinda dull. For the month of June last year, visiting a different coffee shop every day and meeting people was the entire goal of Arrows Reach — I called that the Reach Project. It was fun, I met a lot of great people, and the photos were cool. The friends I left behind to travel loved it, and they miss it now.
I came back a few times later last year, while I was in Europe, to just keep the blog active. Motivation has always been a strange thing in my life. When I consider the potential of Arrows Reach, I get really excited. I have lots of ideas, things to talk about, and apparently a small community that cares to read it. The motivation disappears when I think about actually doing all that stuff. I want to, I just get stuck in the thinking stage. After writing about just doing stuff so many times, you'd think I'd follow that path. And I do, just not with this project.
For this post, I envisioned a think-piece. It's me processing what I'm going to do with the blog. It may not be incredible, pretty, or even remotely interesting to most people. Maybe it's just for me. I don't want this blog to be a journal — I tried that somewhere else. I also don't want to add to the noise of travel blogs. I don't want to add another social media outlet thing to anyone's lives, because I don't use any social media and despise the image it lets people give themselves.
So yeah. There are plenty of things I don't want to do with this blog.
What it is, I have no idea. I don't really know what my life is at this point. For the past 5 years, it's been about other people. It will probably continue down that path for another 5 years, and what I hope is my whole life. I love helping people, making their days brighter, and inspiring them to try new things. But every blogger says that. Every voice on the internet is already telling those people what they need to do and try and live like. I've never wanted this to be about advice, because that stuff isn't real.
And what a defeatist position we're in here now. So many things to not do, not write about, not invest in. It's almost as if Arrows Reach should silently die, except this post says no to that.
For a while, this blog was a side project that I wanted to turn into my full-time gig. I wanted to be a writer, share the great news of this and that, opine on the happenings, excite the reader with eloquent and verbose language, then disappear into that artist's lair you think writers live in. Then I got a full-time job doing what I'd dreamed: Helping customers, working remotely, and traveling. I create lots of stuff, but I keep feeling guilty that I'm not doing more.
Now look where we are! A realization. I'm writing this post, and keeping this blog alive because I owe something to myself. I want the guilt to go away, and I think it will if I keep creating outside work. I love creating at work, though, and that takes my creative energy that could be used outside it. Then it's all about perspective: Create something to make people who use 1Password happy, or create something for some sort of undetermined goal which this blog has. I'm happy doing either.
When I come back to the guilt thing, I think about all those people I've heard about who are doing great things in every area of their life. It sure sounds exciting to jump between an amazing job, a band that plays gigs a few times a month, a blog about all the adventures, and oh, some filming here and there for adventure projects on YouTube. It's such a trendy thing to do. So trendy, it's not even cool in my mind at this point. Doing all those things you can possibly do with your time isn't all that great, but I still want it for some reason.
At this point the wise mentor would tell me, "You can totally talk about your journey! It's your journey, and that's a special thing." But you know what? You're right, wise mentor — I can. I just don't think I should. One reason the Reach Project was so cool for me is because I love meeting new people and experiencing new things and trying new coffee shops and the challenge of a routine during the chaos that is travel. Now I still do all that without needing to write about it everyday. And I might still write about it, privately, in my journal so I have some creative writing stuff happening in my life — responding to customers every day is creative a small percent of the time, as much as I love them.
Going back to the concept of creativity in my job and also outside it, is that really necessary? It it necessary to be creative at work and outside it? The idea is romantic — the one where you are really great at writing so you do it at work, outside work, everywhere. It's exhaustive, sure, but it sounds like your life is full of great things, things you love! I certainly want to spend more time writing here, just for a much different reason than that. And I haven't found the reason yet. See you when I do.