jtmitchum.com

I’ve been busy setting up so many other members with blogs, I had nearly forgotten to start my own.

It’s been busy, but so many of you have been willing to give something new a try. I can tell no one is sure what these are meant to be, and how to use them. The concept is vague, and the idea of publishing your words and thoughts and feelings onto such a public platform may seem intimidating. At least, that’s how I felt as I first started posting for a class last semester.

I refuse to make any promises about what this will be for fear of setting a direction or pace on how things should be. All I can say is that these pages are your very own and I hope they become comfortable to you. Over time, the veil of concern about public onlookers becomes lost as your realize that most people have something better to do.

With that being said, I wouldn’t advocating saying anything you wouldn’t be willing to hear spoken back to you. Anyone should know that applies to writing on paper as well as on the Web.

I look at this as a unique excuse to journalize in a bold and unprivate way. This form of self-humiliation can be as cathartic as it can be alarming at times. But the rewards of shared thoughts and feelings earns a comradery that reminds us friendships are based on these weary extensions of trust.

How many times have you told stories you wished you could tell the same way again years down the road? How many times did you have a day you thought you would never forget, but did? How many times were there things you swore you would write about when you had time, but didn’t?

These numbers vary for everyone, but I know each of them hold high numbers in my life. A blog allows you to post from anywhere the internet or cell phone techology proliferates throughout the world. Had I a blog in Jamaica, Germany, England, Florida, Las Vegas and Chicago, I would have shared a world of experiences with you all.

Had I a blog when I first moved out and saw the world for the raw and unsympathetic environment it is, my youthful words of taking on my independence would have given me many hours of laughter and a few minutes of tears to sift through.

Had I a creative spirit to catalogue my art, my photography and my poetry, I would have shared with hundreds the many now lost moments of earnest work and degraded paper where I can no longer read the graphite on the page.

This is more than a catologue of days and weeks gone by, but an organismal life stained carefully on a slide where family and friends can tenderly look through a microscope at our many layers of historical tissues.

I can tell you what to expect from me in these posts. An earnest accord of the events I wish I could share with so many where often I stand alone and an honest voice of my opinions and thoughts as life generates those situations that can only be answered by a human response.

Ridicule, humor, debate and any other potentially confrontive or constructive response is entirely expected. It’s in these exchanges I expect to observe the fundamental basis of our societies; family.