Looking back

Looking back to my first post, I revealed then that I was becoming more and more conscious of my own mortality and that I felt I was living on ‘borrowed time’.  Since then, I’ve had two more years of precious time and they have, unpredictably, seen me become a regular blogger.

I said in that first post that I wanted to write in order to leave some sort of legacy of my life and thoughts. However, I had had that idea for a long time and realized that, like most people, I didn’t have enough discipline to actually do the writing. I needed some sort of incentive to keep at it and hoped that posting blogs would give me the nudging along that I needed. It has!

Blogging has been an interesting and compelling experience that I have enjoyed. It often gives me the stimulus to do enough research to really understand a concept so I can write clearly about it. Having taught for years, I was well aware that it takes time and effort to understand a subject well enough to be able to teach it clearly and I’ve found the same is true of writing.

As a beginner, another thing I have found about writing is that having a my own vague ideas about a subject isn't good enough. To sort out what I really think is not a trivial exercise – actually it is often so difficult, it sometimes takes several revisions of what I write to get it right. So looking back, I see that the blogs I meant to write about my personal philosophy, old age and even on dying, are few and far between.  Mostly my posts are science or travel related – two of my passions - and they come more easily. 

Unlike the cartoon I am never at a loss for ideas to blog about and I plan to continue but summers are short and are a time for other things. We are at the cottage and with its big gardens, many visitors, lots of reading and even kayaking, I’ve decided to take a break. 

Lately I’ve noticed that some of my earliest posts are not so available online and, as is often the case with radio, where the best of winter fare is repeated in the summer, I think I’ll do the same thing with some of my earliest posts.  So I’ll still post every Sunday and be back in September when my resolution then will be to give more of my personal views on life, philosophy and getting old.    Rie

On Writing

I started this blog, because I recognized that I needed some sort of nudging along to give me the incentive to write down some of the things that interest me and some insights I’ve had during my long life. I have long thought that every individual should leave behind some tangible record of their life and thoughts. I hoped that by blogging I would, in an impersonal way, do just that and It has worked for me. My regular weekly blog has become a habit and, in the process, I’ve learned a few things about what it takes for me to write.

First of all the act of writing, the physical business of typing in the words that convey what I want to say, usually forces me to clarify my thinking – and sometimes, even at my age, to discover what it is I really do think.

When I was going through my formative years – I was often surprised at opinions I would express in the heat of an argument. It was as if I didn’t really know what I thought about a topic until I tried to put it into words. I expect I am not alone in having had that kind of experience. Authorities agree that the brain has not even fully developed until a person has reached the age of 25 and that it keeps maturing all during our life so, with better perspectives, our viewpoints change.

I won’t go so far as to profess that if we did not have language we could not think but I do know that putting what we are thinking or what’s bothering us into words can be remarkably helpful. Research on the subject of journaling confirms this and has disclosed that some of the benefits of writing can be shown to be physical. For instance several different laboratories report that blood test show the immune function is positively affected by writing about our personal circumstances and problems.

The main benefits to writing, however, are mental. Writing invariably clears the mind of unresolved confusions and emotions that we sometimes carry around. As we write, we do this mainly using our left brain that is the analytical problem solver but sometimes our right brain, that is more intuitive and innovative, is needed to come up with insights to help unravel emotional tangles. One of the techniques now suggested to help unblock the right brain’s abilities is to write quickly while journaling and to record stream of conscious thoughts.

The movie 'Freedom Writers' with Hilary Swank is a case in point because it depicts clearly the transformative effects of journaling on disadvantaged adolescents. One thing is for sure, whether we journal or blog or even write down our thoughts in letters, it is virtually impossible to write without discovering more about ourselves. Rie