I like to write.  This statement in no way implies I am any good at writing, only that I derive pleasure from doing it.  I have a bookshelf full of personal journals in my living room.  The sound and feel of the tip of the pen moving across the paper is physically pleasurable to me, much like eating good food or enjoying a hot cup of tea.  Beyond that, the act of writing down one’s thoughts helps order these thoughts and resolve issues; it is how I have come to know myself well.  I am a very private person and the idea of writing for an audience is somewhat terrifying, yet at the same time strangely intruiging, hence my online presence here at my virtual hermit abode.  I am curious to see how my personal writing might look different when I know it is read by other people.  Obviously, these are my very first blog words so I have no actual audience but I am putting these words out here, in public, where they could potentially be read by anyone with an internet connection.

When I went about looking into how to start a blog, I kept coming across the same advice I have heard in the “real world”: Write about what you know.  I feel confident in my expertise when it comes to one subject only: Being me.  I am many things: an introvert, a shy person, a wanderer, a humanist, a misanthrope, a bit of a hermit and the most socially awkward person I know .. I do not write about what it is like to be any of these things.  I do not write in general terms, I do not attempt to define or explain. People with far my knowledge, insight and writing skills have got that area of the blog world covered.  All I have to offer is a look at the world from my point of view.  How that may or may not be of interest to anyone who is NOT me I can not say.

I find that in my journal writing, a lot of detail goes into descriptions of my interactions with the outside world.  That is the topic I intend to discuss on these virtual pages.  As an introverted person who is also terribly shy and socially awkward, I tend to replay and over-analyze every encounter and conversation.  As a frequent solo traveler, solo diner and coffee shop journal-writer, I spend a lot of time listening to other people’s conversations as well.  My understanding of people is in no small part based on what I overhear and what I read in the comments section of news sites and blogs.  That is where the misanthropy comes in.  At the same time I have, on some level, a kind of naive faith in humankind and a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I am very interested in social expectations and cultural constructs and I am often baffled by the things otherwise perfectly reasonable people believe.  These are the ideas I will be exploring on these pages.