Hello 21st century. Yes, the rumors are true. I have begun a blog. After dismissing the notion of blogging as a “passing fad” and declaring, “I don’t need to make public my thoughts and ideas for any kind of validation”, I have finally seen the utility and benefits of blogging.
There are more than enough blogs occupying the blogospace these days, so what is the purpose of this one?
Well to be honest, I’ve been thinking of implementing some sort o’ blog, mainly for myself as an outlet for the myriad ideas and thoughts I generate on the daily. It’s partially a space to reflect, to organize thoughts. But I do also have a plan to turn this into something more of value to you, o Reader On The Interwebs. They say you should write what you know. And I know a few things (mama didn’t raise no fool). I know quite a lot about bike racing, about personal training, about nutrition and eating healthy. I know quite a bit about data visualization and data science and predictive analytics. I figure there’s some solid potential for the intersection of those two seemingly disparate realms. The real issue here is to narrow down what I want to focus on for blog-material. There is obviously a dearth from which to further delve.
The second reason for this blog is to re-center, something that I have found to be increasingly difficult as busy 21st century Americans. The reasons for this drifting are numerous, and a subject for future blog posts, but I have found myself over the past few years drifting further from living in the way I feel we “ought” to live. I have recognized this and decided to make a concerted effort to redress the issue.
A third reason for creating this blog is because I rather enjoy writing, and blogging provides a conducive medium upon which to spill the contents this here ol’ brain. The only way to get better at writing is to write.
I aim to write about a variety of areas, from things that I think can be designed/done better or more efficiently, to the most energy and time efficient method of commuting from one’s residence to one’s place of work, to the importance of nutrition in its role in preventive medicine, to solid music, to technology, human behavior, data-driven decision-making, modern fashion trends vs timeless style, interpersonal relationships, bicycle racing, time management, observations about this crazy, hectic world in which we are plunged, and of course, the big (or at least bigger) questions of an existential nature.
Motivation:
So I’ve been working in the Real World for 18 months thus far. To label it a prison…would be going too far. But after a year and a half, I’ve been doing some self-analysis and I realize the office environs has produced in this man one of the most unhappy periods of his life, defined by a near-perpetual state of anxiety, heightened cortisol levels, and general feeling of emptiness. Yes, that’s probably the most accurate way to describe it: empty. Not necessarily good or bad, but mostly just empty. I am not entirely sure why this is, but I can attest with great certainty upon my own observations, that offices appear to be a most in-conducive environment for happy people. The people who aren’t walking around like quasi-living, empty husks of human beings are so heavily caffeinated and caught up in the rat-race overly concerned with perception that they aren’t even aware that they are unhappy.
I feel that I am capable of more in life. Much, much more. I also think a lot of people get complacent in their current state and become reluctant to change or, more to the point, evolve and grow. The past year or so has been some of the greatest stagnation I’ve ever personally experienced. Is this really what awaits the average educated adult American male?
I say there is more that can be had by life! Do not surrender to complacency and faux-comfort so readily. Resist the temptation to ask yourself what kind of dining set defines you as a person
I was re-reading parts of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises tonight and a passage from chapter 14 spoke directly to me. I shall transcribe it here for effect:
Ernie is rife with sage advice…
“You could get your money’s worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I’ve had. Perhaps that wasn’t true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about.”
So I guess that’s what I’m saying. I want to start be knowing how to live in the world. Hopefully by doing so, and doing it well, I can deduce some deeper meaning from it. Good night invisible readers, and human on…
datacyclist 