Starting Out
May 23, 2020
Well here I am. I honestly am kind of surprised at myself for making this in the first place. 2020 has been a series of epiphanies all revolving around the concept that sitting on my butt hasn’t gotten me where I wanted to go in life and continuing that trend isn’t going to look any better when its time to die. Kind of a macabre realization that I’m having a mid life crisis at 25 but at the same time it feels really nice to have a fire lit under me so early on in my life, and if this is what it takes to get a bit further then I’ll take the temporary anxiety in exchange for something to show for it.
So, what is this then? Well, to be honest I really don’t know either. I have started and stopped a variety of other projects over the past 2 or 3 years post college and none of them have taken off or continued, save for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Those projects I’ve started and stopped include but are not limited to: blacksmithing, programming, fitness, carpentry, music, running, video game production, home brewing, flopping a web development company, CNC equipment, and much much more. Sure I have something to show for all of these things even if its just a small takeaway that I can look back on and be proud about, but not having actually produced anything and instead acquiring (at a very basic level) a variety of skills that I feel aren’t well developed or honed isn’t the way I was hoping things would go by this point in my life. I’m not looking to be a master at any of these things necessarily, but I wouldn’t even call myself a “jack of all trades”, mostly just a dabbler aspiring for a basic understanding and still missing the mark.
And so, in late 2019, I panicked, sat down, wrote everything I wanted to do hobbywise under the sun and made it my goal to get involved with as many of those things as I reasonably could in some way in the year 2020. This website is my way of bringing others in to keep me accountable and is also a way for me to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when I actually have something “meaningful” to show for my work. What is meaningful you ask?
Whatever I feel like, that’s what. How’s that for a sign of maturity and accountability?
So, with all this introduction out of the way, the things currently on the docket or to appear at my earliest convenience are (in no particular order):
- Homesteading
- Short Stories and other Writing Things
- Backcountry Adventure Vlogging
- Dungeons and Dragons Diary and Database (4D?)
- And making this website as well as maintaining associated social media
On top of this I do intend on keeping my full time job because having some money is cool and good. Having said that, this means that the total length of time I have for whatever these things I’m working on for any given day is limited to a max of like 4 hours and that’s if I don’t throw my entire evening down the drain by getting sucked into the youtube vortex or watching some stupid TV show that I’ve already seen like 1,000 times. What I mean by this is, if you’re coming here expecting to have a novel every month, you’re probably in the wrong place and should instead explore some other creator’s blogs while I furiously work away on whatever garbage I have on my plate.
And finally, where does that leave you? You may be saying: “Well, Tom, this is all well and good but I don’t think you really described what your interaction with me is.” And that’s correct! I barely know why I am making this website at midnight on a work day but I felt compelled to do it because it seemed cool, so I did it and here we are. If I don’t even know why I made this or why I’m here in the first place, I really don’t know why you’re here.
But I’m happy you are here. And I hope that as you keep coming back, I’ll have more to show for it.
Who knows. Stick around and find out.
Cheers!
Written by Thomas Ogden, a hobbiest who dabbles in a lot of random junk.