Well, I give up on doing anything useful with this blog thing. The problem is, I don’t just want to delete it, for reasons that I can’t really understand. I’ve thought about using it for things I want to write that would turn out longer than a Facebook status update should be, and for stuff I don’t really care if anyone else ever reads; but that never seems to come to fruition.

The problem is, I don’t ever think I have time (or set aside time) to just sit down and write. I always feel like I could be doing other things, more productive things. I’m the same way with reading articles online, too. I feel like I’m wasting time by reading because I could be doing such-and-such or working on this problem or whatnot. So what has happened is I’ve learned to skim articles, albeit very badly, and I never remember enough of any one thing for it to be useful to me unless I have an internet connection to look up “the rest of the story.”

I would really like to rectify this situation, but I am unsure of how to start. I see this sort of “don’t have time for reading/writing” mentality growing in my life, and I don’t like it. Way back when I was still in school, I loved reading. LOVED it. And I made time for it. I didn’t necessarily love writing, and I guess I never have, but I’ve always wanted to keep a journal or something similar. Perhaps it’s time for me to change some things, shuffle some priorities.

On a related note, I seem to be racking up project after project without finishing them–much less starting them, half the time. I have a bunch of parts for an Arduino that I got last year because I wanted to fiddle with electronics. I have a patch sitting on my Desktop for the OpenBSD C library. I have a bunch of video games that are half-played, if at all. I have upwards of 20 or 30 books that are staring at me, pleading “read me?” And at the end of the day, I wonder just what I did to accomplish so little. Perhaps if I start jotting down my thoughts every so often here I can have something to look back on later, to sort of keep me accountable for the things I want to do but don’t. I don’t want to be a workaholic; I want to have my own hobbies, even if they closely resemble the things I do at my job. The difference is that these projects and hobbies are for ME, and no one else. I need things like that.

So, let’s see: I need to learn to read with understanding again; I need to start writing more; I need to learn how to have a hobby again; I need relearn (learn?) time management. Piece of cake. Maybe if I approach the blog thing as something for me, and me alone (while still being public, so don’t expect me to plunge the depths of my heart here) I’ll be more apt to write. Plus, writing is therapeutic, right?

That’s all for now. Seth, when you read this next, don’t roll your eyes and say, “well THAT was stupid.” You need this, you know you do.