Changing Focus

When I first created this blog, it was done with the thought of having somewhere to put my political and social commentary.  You see, I have another online journal that acts more like...well...a journal, but I wanted somewhere that I could express thoughts in a more public forum.  These would be thinky type thoughts rather than general updates on my life or other things that are probably of interest only to myself and maybe some friends.  So I kept this blog for generally political and social expressions.

Then I realized a couple of things:

1.  I don't tend to post a lot of political type posts, because I find myself getting so wound up about politics as it is in modern America that I can't really put down what I want to say in a coherent, non-asshole-ish way.

2.  Most of my social commentary tends to focus on My Life As A Fat Person, and that is generally covered in my "Confessions of a Fat Superhero" blog.

3.  There's more to life than political and social commentary.

So I decided to re-purpose this blog and make it a bit more general.  But don't worry, it isn't going to become my journal, because I still have that online journal and can use that to bore my friends with the mundane details of life.  This blog is going to still contain what political and social commentary I want to cover, but will expand its focus to include random ideas and thoughts as well.

I have no idea how that will go, but I figure that since I enjoy writing, it behooves me to get regular practice at it in a place where people can give feedback on what I say.  Between "Fat Superhero" and this blog, that should be feedback enough for anyone!

It's kind of funny, though, because as I think about it I realize that we are constantly changing our focus in life, so it is rather appropriate that I change the focus of my blog too.  I mean, when we're children our focus is rather small and contained within the area of our family, friends, and school.  We get up, we go to school, we do homework, we play, and we go back to bed.  Sure there are chores and family time and things in there too, but life has a reassuring monotony to it at that age.  We know our routine, we know what is expected of us, and we don't have to worry about the bigger picture.

Then we get older, and our focus widens.  We start working or go to college (or both!) and our vision grows to include the bigger world around us.  Society infringes on our secure sphere of existence.  It pushes into our lives in little ways like dealing with traffic during rush hour every day, and makes itself known in larger ways like catastrophes, elections (sometimes the same thing as the previous item), terrorism, the economy, and so on.  A lot of those intrusions are negative, which can wear us down over time, make us tired, and make us want to pull back into ourselves and our safe little spheres.  We know that it is an illusion when we're hiding amongst the fragile walls of our routine.  It becomes all too clear that we can't go back to not being aware of the outside world.  That doesn't stop us from trying to keep making our worlds smaller sometimes, though. 

But let's face it, we need that larger world.  We need to be aware of everything that is happening around us because if we aren't aware of it then we can't have any effect on it.  It is our responsibility as world residents to have an effect on things, to try and make things better for ourselves and for future generations.  When we stop trying to have that positive effect, when we settle for not doing anything or when we decide that the only way out is to make things so bad that no one will want a future any more, then we become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

So I guess that changing my blog's focus is one way that I can widen my view and start looking for ways to become part of the solution.  They won't be big ways, because despite my childhood dreams of riches and fame, I'm just me.  I'm a Fat Superhero who lives an everyday life and is just trying to pay the bills and enjoy what time I have on this world.  However, now I know that part of the enjoyment for me is to do something that will make the world that I eventually leave behind a better place for someone, or hopefully a lot of someones.  It may mean doing a lot of small things rather than one or two big things, but I'm hoping that I can find those small things and get them done.  If enough of us do the small things, they'll add up to some pretty powerful changes in the end.

That's my hope anyway.