It's the Thought that Counts

A year ago, I wrote about reaching the milestone of 100 blog posts. Part of my initial challenge to myself had been to write regularly:

Trying to post around once a week has been a useful discipline. If nothing else it's motivational. I've managed to carve out time even when life and work have been hectic ...

Twelve months on and I was surprised to see that I'd gone past the 150 without noticing. Some of my motivation back when I started came from a bit of self-analysis:

I started to think more deeply about what I was doing and how I was doing it and tried to tease out where my actions, intuitions, ideas and mistakes were coming from.

Now, having introspected some more I realise that one of the things I'm getting out of blogging these days is the act itself.

Phil Kay talked about "keeping loose" in the interview I quoted recently and Rick Rubin, describing Eminem, said much the same thing in another:

he is always writing ... he knows 99% of it will never be used ... he wants his facility to be there so that when he needs to write something ... he's just master-level practise all the time.

I don't pretend that every thought I have is revolutionary, revelatory or even revealable - there are many, many thoughts unpublished and best left that way - but by forcing myself to think I am getting in the habit of thinking and, I hope, thinking is becoming my habit.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/kynJ5E

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