The History of Blog.

Here's an interesting fact.

Blogs weren't always a source of income for anyone with spare time and a marketable hobby. Once upon a time, back in the wild and woolly days before the demise of the telephone modem, a blog was a web log, or a place on the web where a person could log (upload) news or insights or thoughts to share with other people, usually people with whom one was already acquainted.

Blogs were often used by students and service members to keep up with family and friends without having to buy envelopes and postage and write a bunch of letters all saying the same thing but with different addressees.

Just to date myself... in the earliest days of social electronica, packets of data were uploaded via interconnected Bulletin Board Systems while users held their breath and hoped no one rang in and broke the data stream.  Exciting times.

It were hardship, young'uns. Uphill. Both ways. In the driving snow during a blisteringly hot summer. Et cetera. [If you don't understand why I typed that, all it means is I'm way too old.]

Here in the 21st century, it seems as if writing a blog (or "having/owning" a blog, in current vernacular) purely for the writingness is a sorry use of resources. If I have a message, why not monetize it? If I am a creditable source, I should be sponsored, and make endorsements, and stuff! Why on earth should anyone read what I write otherwise?

I understand. Really, it's okay not to read my blog unless you're related to me, because:

• My life is not that interesting to anyone but me, and no amount of gorgeously filtered jpgs will make it so.
• My interest in entertaining other people is farther down on the priority list than it should be, if I wanted to make a living out of writing a blog.
• My scope is broad and my scale is variegated. In other words, I'm not writing a diet blog, I'm not writing an exercise blog, I'm not a life coach, and I'm not selling bupkus. Therefore, I feel entitled to make my scope about pretty much anything, and some days the scale of the effort will be nonexistent.

I have no idea what I'll write about from day to day, other than how I am adjusting to some fairly radical changes in my life, and how I'm (hopefully) succeeding in making deliberate health Wholly Doable(TM). I simply want to chronicle how I deal with the ordinary and extraordinary crap that life throws at everyone, while still remaining reasonably sane, and still making good choices. You see, I've learned that chirpy Pinteresting people who talk about the virtues of making your own nut milk must have nothing else to do with their lives, because I have milked the nut, and it took way too effing long to justify the labor (not to mention the overheated blender). And then there's the debate over Paleo or Primal or Nocturnal or - I'm pretty sure I made one of those up. I get that lifestyles require commitment, but food should never be a thing someone stops being a friend over.

Let's just not go there.

I want a place I can revisit, so I can see where I've been, and how far I've come, and how well I've learned to be healthy on a working class budget with an aging body. I want to be able to share what I've learned that works with people for whom the Internet is overwhelming.  I want to be able to debunk the health fads by serving as living proof that if we stop buying, and start doing, we can reclaim our lost communities and declining health.

Mostly I want to vent my rage about all the crap that's sold on sites so laggy with advertising and so laden with pop-ups and crowded side bars that I feel like I'm back in the awful 00's of applets and leaky code. That's a fairly limited topic but I'll wring it dry.

Mostly I need closure. Healing. A replacement for gaming. A motivator for running up and down the steps a few more times. A reminder that my purpose is worthy, my cause is just, and my responsibility is mandated by my gifts. It is my privilege to serve and I am fortunate to have the resources I do. Now I need to get out there and use them.

This is how I hold me accountable.