June 8th, 2020

[Tap, tap] Is this thing on?

Hello future me. Hello future world. 

If everything worked as planned, you will be reading this entry on June 8th, 2012. But... 

...if the last few months have taught me anything, it is that the world is a very strange and unpredictable place. I've had a vasectomy, but by this time next year, I could be a father of quadruplets. I don't like to bake, but in a year I could be the owner of a wedding cake shop.

Or, I could be dead from the coronavirus. 

But let's move forward as if everything is going to work out just fine. Because in my experience, it usually does. 

I am sincerely trying to become a better human being.

That does not mean that I want to post some piece of social media performance art about becoming a better person so that I can get likes or some other garbage like that. I don't want to be performative. I'm not looking for attention. I don't want to be a person who posts about "How we all need to take Black Lives Matter seriously" and then in a few days go back to posting about my new hairdoo and pictures about my cat. I don't want to be flaky like that. I mean, I'm already NOT like that, since I no longer seek attention on social media.  

Social media may bring out the best in you. But to be frank,  it brings out the worst in me. I could tell you many stories about how I was seeking attention like a dingaling, but ended up just making a fool of myself. But time is short, so never mind. 

My experiment here is to delay posting my self improvement regimen for a whole year, so that I force myself to actually stick with it, and to keep myself on task. 

Because if I don't set myself up in a regimen, I have a bad habit of flaking on my goals. 

The good news on the flip side is that if I get myself into a routine, and if I keep a record of some sort, I really am pretty good at sticking to my goals. 

This blog is my record. It's not a "secret" but it is waaay off the beaten path, and I doubt anybody is going to come looking for it. Because honestly, why would anybody? 

Anyway, enough about my goals for the future. It's time to get to work. 

I'm going to start off with "13th" By Ava DuVernay, on Netflix. 90 minutes give-or-take. 

*

Post script: 

Wow. I'm 90 minutes wiser. Much wiser. Most days probably won't have the punch of the last 90 minutes. But that's okay. Some days I'll watch a kick ass documentary by Ava DuVernay, some days I'll probably get stuck with some boring essay on abstract spoken word metaphors. 

I will learn by absorbing all sorts of things. 

It is late, and I need to get to bed. Goodnight future me. 

-Stephen Bernard Petterson 

June 8th 2020