After Four Years and 14,000 Pageviews I Still Can't Consistently Title Stuff

Usually I am listening to some music while I write these, but I'm in a library so I don't posses that luxury. That music becomes the title, which I usually relate back to whatever I'm writing about. Unlike what Jamie just told me, I usually title first.

I'm at that point in the school year where everything is moving at hyper speed but the school day. As a result, you've begun to despise everyone around you while simultaneously the workload quadruples. If I miss a Friday (as I did last week... I don't usually skip whole weeks but I couldn't get a draft off the ground), I apologize, but that's why.

I'm also in the middle of planning for my Eagle Project. You'd think that redoing an outdoor sign would be a simple planning process and the challenges would stem from my inability lack of experience to do any sort of construction. Turns out it's the opposite. The goal is that by June I have something in stone and we start work.

And it's at this point the bell rings.

After this, and about a gap of ten hours, I'm back at it; typing away. I want to acknowledge that this site hit the 14,000 mark within the last week or two. I have to stop looking at these numbers. I spent a day working the numbers and if all goes on the track that it has been, I'll be at 23,000 or so by June of 2015. So that's cool. But really, why do I care?

I changed my across-the-emails signature recently. I noticed that a bunch of teachers and professionals I email have some deep and profound quote dotting the bottom of their signature. I've had this quote at the bottom of mine for a while now:

"I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got" – Walter Cronkite

I haven't really talked about success here, and I think there are two reasons for that: 1) I don't know that I truly understand what success is and 2) with all of the metacognition I've been toying with, the question usually goes into a why does society put such an emphasis on success? So I've decided to think about it for once. Webster is interesting with how it defines it. It first reads "the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame" and then "the correct or desired result of an attempt".

Why do I say interesting? If you recall from the latest installment of me gushing over F. Money Bojangles' Gatsby, I talked about a sense of superficial sense of authority. The rich have power merely because they have a wealth of resources. If success is measured by wealth or fame (which in a capitalist society makes the most sense) then we're all doomed. The rich merely get richer and the famous breed fame, leaving success to those who we respect and beyond that an oligarchy of sorts. Which I personally think is a bunch of baloney.

I prefer that second definition, or at least the inclusion of "desired result". Success is something defined by someone actively striving for something. What is the desired result of me writing here week after week? That's for me to define. Honestly, at this point it's to become a better writer, not necessarily to gain a following or gain accolades (in the past three weeks alone I've been added to four or five lists on twitter of "top bloggers" or "top designers". WHAT DOES IT MEAN?).

So again, thanks for following along, and joining me. Nothing personal, I'm just not sure why you're there. Nevertheless, I'm thankful you're there (a 60+/week readership is a great motivator).

One week from now I'll be in the audience of Carlynton's The Wizard of Oz. This is a show which, depending on the next two days, I might be assisting in the lighting design. Because you know I can't stay away from these things.