Why the Blog?

Okay. I get asked this question. Why the blog?

Some tell me it’s my ego. I want to be seen. Maybe, seen as smart. I can’t deny this possibility. I'm pretty sure at some level I have spent my life seeking attention. I value intelligence, so how I prefer to be seen can be characterized as smart. Okay. That secret's out.

I have also heard that maybe I am trying to help people. Sounds altruistic, doesn’t it? In truth, even since I was a kid, I think I have helped people see things from my perspective, and over the years I have received feedback that this tendency has brought value. But no, altruism herein is not my main purpose; at best, benefit to readers is just a corollary benefit.

And then there are folks who fear that my motives are commercial; like I feel I should make these musings available so that potential clients can be drawn to the quality of thought leadership at our firm. I say "fear" in the above sentence because I believe they are afraid of two things: that I might say something that makes us look BAD, rather than good; and, because greed-based motives put me in the middle of a kind of conflict of interest wherein maybe what I'm saying is not really what I believe.

But, notwithstanding any of the attractiveness of those three hypotheses just outlined, there's a better explanation.

The bigger truth is that all my life I have been insecure - maybe less so, as time has gone by, but the program was well embedded over the first couple of decades. To compensate, even as a little kid, almost out of bewilderment, I looked inward. Who am I? Why do I hurt? How do I feel happy? How do feelings work? How does consciousness work? What's the relationship between consciousness and the outside world? Is there a god? I studied philosophy and psychology in school. I had extensive therapy. I trained to be a psychotherapist. I explored meditation in a pretty big way. All this, because, at the core, I had a sense of emptiness that I believed would only go away if I figured it out. I tried to figure it out in order to get control over my angst.

So why do I write these entries? Because doing so feels like old home week. I get to do what came naturally for decades: formulate my answers to my big questions posed because I NEEDED answers. When I write these ideas, I am getting closer and closer, mostly for my own sake, to how I think things work.

Why make them public? My knowledge that you are reading this somehow holds me accountable for getting it right. And I want it right for my sake. So thanks.

I made a career out of sharing the output of my insecure meanderings. I found the perfect profession, a symbiosis of sorts that supports my manner of living: my neurotic need to figure out my existence in the world, the cravings of others for answers to similar questions, my desire to be seen, and the expectations of others (teachers, listeners, readers, colleagues, learners) that I be as accurate and accessible as possible.

You see, I BECOME by explaining my world view, responsibly, accurately, and with effort. At the end of an entry, just like at the end of writing a chapter in a book, or before a break during a training session, my background consciousness, after working like a bugger, seems to say, “I think I got that idea right,” and then I feel, as I have felt all my life, closer to myself. Not for your sake, for my own.

So, with respect, you're my superego, my conscience. That's the point. Your presence makes me reorganize ideas, prune fluff, and bear down on my message. Apparently, since, as you can see, I AM my understanding of the universe, YOU, by your anticipated presence, deliver me me.

In that sense, then, thanks, again.