My First Speed Blog
Speed Blogging for 15 minutes straight. What could go wrong?
10/8/20263 min read
This is a speed typing test. Today I am starting a blog on our website. I have always thought about what it would be like to post my thoughts online without a thought in the world. Now, I am trying it. I just took an online speed typing test and I received scores of 70 words per minute and 91 words per minute, so I am a little nervous that I might be biting off more than I can chew by asking myself to type continuously for this amount of time. However, this could be exactly what I needed all along.
I have been thinking deeply about my use of time. I just turned 29, and as such I am considering what time I have left--the time left until I am 30, then until I am 40, then I'm basically at retirement and then, basically dead. I know this is not even close to accurate, but I do wonder how much time I have wasted consuming content versus creating content. This is why I am starting this exercise.
My plan here is to create a space for myself to showcase my thoughts on the world. It seems to me that there is so much already out there, and with everything out there I don't know that the words I have, nor the perspectives on the world, are worthy of putting out there into the ether. However, I believe a few things. First, I do believe the notion that, once you publish original works of thought, especially a book, you become an expert on that topic. Doesn't matter if it's a book about binge drinking in college or articles in a travel journal akin to Daniel Cleaver's sexiest spots to travel to; it makes you the go-to authority on the topic. While admirable and disagreeable, that doesn't truly matter. I think that ultimately it's an honorable thing to submit yourself to be seen.
This comes to a major topic I have been pondering lately: why is it so hard for me to be seen? When walking about Kansas City, I feel like I default to practices that make me easy to ignore. The clothes I wear in public are, most of the time, athleisure (and the same 6 total rotating pieces of athleisure at that). The extent of hair products I use is conditioner, I am typically wearing little if no makeup, and my major pair of shoes at the moment is my beige Birkenstocks. Before this, I was sporting the grungiest, crustiest pair of white--now a formidable gray--slip on sandals that offered no support and didn't flatter my thick lower legs at all.
When I walk into a room, I do feel a bit like a diva, I suppose. There's something to knowing that, when you arrive in a new space, someone--anyone--might be looking at you. Taking you in, shaping you up, comparing, estimating. I wonder what most people think when I walk into most rooms?
What a futile little thought. I know deep down that it's ridiculous to concern oneself with the prying thoughts of others. Additionally, I know that others truly only think of themselves. I know I do. While I might spare a passing thought to a passing woman wearing an ill-fitting shirt over her swelled belly and the rattiest leggings imaginable barely covering her robust behind, I know ultimately I won't ever think of that person again after making my judgement of her wardrobe and size.
This is life in the Midwest, perhaps. I hope that I can outgrow this, but I also know that this might just be a fatal flaw of the human psyche. I feel as though I hear often about other places in the world that they also size one up immediately upon seeing them, though I don't know how accurate it would be to say that the people doing the sizing-up take that judgement more than 10 steps or 10 seconds away from the judged.
Tomorrow, I would like to spend a few minutes writing about The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I am so intrigued by her story, and am enamored with the way she describes some things in this novel, but I am not alone in this fascination.
This practice may well replace my morning (or, in this case, late afternoon) pages. Let's see how many words I was able to conjure... 738. Well, now 741. Crap. Tata for now!
