And I do feel somewhat different actually. Last year was an interesting one. I was hoping to end it and start off the new one with a good amount of blogging during my break from school and work; but here we are, a week and a half into the new year, with me now four days into the new semester, and, in the way of blogging, I have only done so much as jot down some very rough ideas for future posts in Stickies. To be sure the time always seems to go by more quickly than expected, getting filled up with so much to do. But I also have felt a certain paradoxical reluctance to actually sit down and form words over the last month or so.

The kind of written expression I have wanted has seemed rather complicated during the last couple of months I guess, as I discussed in my last post. Also, during this time, ironically pretty much right at the outset of the biggest political season in the U.S, I lost almost all interest in writing on political matters. Part of that, of course, could have something to do with my cynicism for presidential politics, but, still, my recent blogging difficulties go much deeper than all of that. To put it simply, I guess I have been digging deeper.

I’m sure it is a common feature of growing older and becoming more educated, but over the last year especially I grew more and more frustrated and lost in a certain sense, not quite sure what to believe or how to reconcile myself with a society I often feel so at odds with. This resulted I think from me becoming progressively more and more acutely aware of what I personally see as widespread, systemic problems – not only within religion or government or whatever else – but built into practically everything, into our very system of living and general ways of thinking, shaping the general attitudes of society. And this, in many ways, negatively affects nearly everything from governance, to institutions, to city planning, to business, to individual relationships, to neighborhoods and so on; the very foundations of society itself essentially.

Naturally, thinking like this left me feeling rather alienated and hopeless at my darkest point, beginning to think that most of what I have been told and what so many societal influences have tried to teach me to think is a lot of bullshit that should be making more and more of us very angry. What this leads to for me is getting back to basics, asking fundamental questions – which I really should have been asking much earlier in life – in an attempt to precisely figure out “what is wrong with this picture”? I see now that I was / am unwittingly on the doorstep of philosophy itself. The problem lately has been, however, I have not quite yet reveled in the asking of questions and the personal search for truth and understanding, but have, rather, felt the heavy apathy that comes from being overwhelmed by the trash that is heavy-handedly given to us and widely accepted as truth daily.

Interestingly though, through all of this, I have conversely found great sources of meaning and hope, becoming more aware and more appreciative of the wealth and history of great and valuable things we do have to discover and explore, such as the vast ongoing dialogue and interaction of art creation and writing and thinking that expands and challenges ideas about life and living; these things that, for me, stand like great beacons of light and hope amidst so much continuing dark sadness. Further, as I reflected upon last year, I realized that none of these intense feelings just came out of the blue of course. It was a process, and I can now see there were many different seeds of thought planted throughout the year even outside of my formal education experience, many of which now seem to have joined together and begun to grow and synthesize. And I have recently discovered sources that have further encouraged the growth, giving me more understanding and a better vocabulary for much of my frustration with our social structure in general.

So while this post has been rather ambiguous as to the substance of my complaints, it is so simply to establish the foundation for my desire to write in much more detail on this matter over the course of this year. Though I will continue to write on the kinds of topics I have in the past dealing with politics and history, I will be attempting to write more personally as well while also attempting to put much of what I write into a broader context that questions fundamental social structure and infrastructure as well as the embedded attitudes and processes that have gotten us where we are.

Much more coming soon. Please stay tuned. Happy New Year.