I've learned a lot of things about myself from this blog. Before I blogged I'd never kept a record of my thoughts, a diary or a journal and I suppose, because of that, my sense of self-awareness was rather short-range. Meaning I wasn't able to biologically index and recall (note to self: this is a cool way to describe 'remembering stuff') sufficient of my thoughts at any one point in time to see patterns, trends or behavioral tendencies develop clearly enough to recognise them as anything other than singular, disconnected, random thoughts.That's not to say that I had no sense of self-awareness prior to blogging, more that blogging has helped me recognise aspects of my personality and what makes me tick and it has also helped me to confirm what I already suspected.
Certain of these personality traits and habits have also grown in through this blog and I suspect that my displeasure with blogging of late has much to do with my displeasure at stepping back and then seeing myself subconsciously behaving in certain repetitive ways. What this blog has done is to provide me with an instantly accessible and hyperlinked collective view of my thoughts and behaviours in a way that my memory alone cannot. A new way of seeing myself as others might see me that, in certain respects, offers me new level of self-awareness that leads me to be more self-critical as a result.
To explain, mlod isn't a classically personal blog in the sense that I don't blog about mundane personal issues every day, like where I've been or what I've had to eat, nor is it a blog heavy on links to memes, other people's mundane blog entries or what's on Daypop each day. I also don't blog news type posts unless they happen to be events so large that they transcend the definition of 'everyday news' and so stories like the Shuttle or War in Iraq make it on here, but not much else. Equally non-existent here are posts about my work - something that adds up to over 50% of my waking day and a big part of what defines my life on a daily basis. I recall making a conscious effort to strive for originality here rather than re-processing, for the want of a better word, content or material that originated elsewhere. But, ironically, in attempting to be original I've unearthed a strong aspect of my character and personality that results in repetitive creativity that is anything but original.
I regard myself as an innovator and more acutely as someone who has strong improvisational skills. I've developed an approach to tasks, and this applies professionally too, that disregards missing critical components in a plan, underfunding, lacking professional skills, abilities or know-how and purposely works around problems that would otherwise scupper most endeavours. I can take ideas and abilities of my own and bend them to suit other purposes. A minimal understanding of how something works is usually all I need to be confident enough to throw myself into the depths of a problem, task or project that most other people would never dream of undertaking so lightly. Flying by the seat of your pants as it is sometimes known.
Also, something deep my make-up seems to create a desire to have the odds stacked against me in order to really give myself fully to a problem or an issue. I'm a very competitive person but my hunger for success is fed more by my need to feel that I have achieved something that people expected me to fail at, or where my chances of success were, at best, under privileged. When I have something to push against that's when the fire in my belly burns at its hottest. Once I've achieved something, that's usually when I start to cruise and lose interest, the thrill having evaporated at the same time the challenge ceased to exist.
Recently I've begun to countenance the thought that my subconscious desire to come from behind or to fight with one arm tied behind my back, leads me subconsciously to make life difficult for myself by leaving preparation for critical moments or responsibilities to the last minute, just to spark the thrill-fueled interest I need to do my best. As if the best ideas can only come to the surface under extreme pressure where the chances of success are low and the results of failure are truly damaging but the recognition of achievement in those circumstances is supreme. See Extreme Selling.
Where did this pattern of behaviour come from? Well, I'm inclined to be lazy, I procrastinate too much and I strongly suspect that there may be a link between my early working life where my inherent tendency to do things at the last minute and to rely on my quick thinking improvisational abilities to pull me through and the need to have things stacked against me in order to to get the best out of me and the best of my ideas to the surface.
Improvisation comes over strongly in the posts, spoofs and doctored images I create on this blog. It sometimes takes the form of parody, taking an already common concept, thought or idea and rendering it differently, or tweaking it to create something fresh or new. But, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it seems to be getting quite repetitive and I wonder if people might eventually switch off, thinking, "There goes Gary again, making another parody, twisting someone else's idea and passing it off as his own...yawn yawn..".
I also sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as original thought these days. In my under-educated mind, education should give us at least two things; the ability to know what has gone before - to learn from and about other people's significant thoughts and education should also give us the ability or desire to create original thought - to think for ourselves.
My improvisation is a large part of my make-up, looking through my archives has underlined that for me and that's why it features on my blog as often as it does, even if it has a job on its hands masquerading as original creativity. But, if I'm true to myself, I'll take these negative thoughts and perceptions about my boring predictability and use them to inspire the kind of effort and original creativity I require to overcome them. Some days I'll post about how I feel like giving it all up, I'll subconsciously try to give you the impression that all hope is lost, that I'm done for, just so that you expect me to fail and to quit blogging. Then right at the last minute, when all hope is gone, I'll pull a rabbit out of a hat and the cycle starts all over again. Either that, or I'll fall into an infinitely looping self-parody like a retired circus animal, that wouldn't be pretty.
After all, I will almost certainly have subconsciously created these problems and negative perceptions of myself with the specific purpose of overcoming them in the first place. Wrap your grey matter around that baby, baby.