Hey there!
Welcome to TurtleSloth.
Before you come in, I’m going to ask that you take off your shoes and obey all posted signs and placards – by which I mean check your assumptions at the door, but more importantly, ask yourself why you’re here.
This space is, primarily, a private journal intentionally made public. It has served as my canvas where I could work through complicated thoughts and feelings. It has served as a place for me to vent. It’s been my small attempt at being brave and vulnerable and transparent and honest in a world that isn’t always brave or vulnerable or transparent or honest. I don’t claim to ever get those things right and I’m often clumsy and inarticulate. I have a lot of typos. Sometimes, I use the wrong words. I revise a lot – both my thinking and my writing (occasionally my life). I embrace my multitudes and try to own my missteps, and by reading on, my simple request is that you embrace those multitudes and missteps as well.
Before we get any further, I’d like to revisit the “why are you here” question. More specifically (for some of you), what do you hope to learn about me that you can’t or might not ask me directly? Based on web statistics, the people who visit this site fall into three categories:
- People who know/knew me (friends, family, colleagues, and exes).
- People who may wish to know me (women I’ve given my number to on dating sites, potential employers researching me as a candidate, and potential co-workers and colleagues).
- People who had the misfortune of landing here because they googled something that they wanted more information on and I happened to talk about it in a very casual, personal, long-winded, and ultimately uninformative way (how to write a golden shovel poem; is the smell of burnt toast a sign of having a stroke?; is there a specific word that means that petulant feeling of wanting the world or your friends or your exes to miss you?)
If there’s a fourth category, it’s people whose work I borrowed, copied, shared, stole (poets, artists, etc. etc.) And if there’s a fifth, it’s internet bots skimming and scamming and doing whatever bots do, but they’re not people so they don’t count.
To the third category (those who got here by accident), all I can say is, I’m sorry. Hopefully, you had the good sense to immediately recognize that this site was not what you were looking for and to move on to the next page of search results. Though kudos to you for being so determined. I can’t image that the link you followed was anywhere in your top twenty search results. If it was, you should probably take that up with Google. Again, sorry.
To the fourth category… I hope I honored your work (unless I was criticizing it, in which case I hope you’re devastated and mending your ways. Do better!). I am happy to remove things or give them better/more appropriate attributions. I’m a lazy scholar when it comes to citations. I blame the internet. I try to provide enough context (name/author and title) so that readers could Google it (I did).
To the first group – Hey!!! I wish I could include a hand waving hi emoji. I’m doing well – even when I say I’m not doing well, I still doing pretty well. If you know how to reach me and feel so inclined – please do (my email is on my about page). I’ve worked really hard to live a life without grudges and full of genuine happiness for other people. There’s a really good chance that I think about you more often than you would assume and there’s an even better chance that I’d like to to hear from you. I probably won’t respond right away, and then I’ll write an entire blog post about the guilt I feel about dropping the ball after having encouraged you to reach out. It’s complicated, but not malicious.
To the second category (those who wish to know me: potential dates, potential employers, potential associates and colleagues – but especially the potential dates)… maybe stop here. Maybe get to know me in person first? I’ve thought about giving this piece of advice / asking that question often. Is this my insecurity and fear making this suggestion? Is this my not so subtle attempt at controlling the message and image of myself? Am I afraid you’ll read something and misinterpret it or use it against me or use it to generalize about me? Yes – to all of those things…. but more importantly, I believe in the magic of discovery and how shared curiosity has a way of building bonds. There’s a warmth that comes from having a conversation. In relationships, there’s a true sense of wonder in discovering another person’s depths. What’s written here is a one-way conversation with myself. By reading on, you may be robbing yourself (and me and us) of the getting to know each other process. By reading on, you may write me off prematurely or you may become more intrigued, but either way, you’ll be building an expectation in your mind that may or may not play out in person… Just a thought.
However, it’s a free world, and I’m not in the habit of discouraging readers.
I’ve been writing in this space since September, 2019. I’ve never been terribly comfortable with it – any of it: the writing, the sharing, the constant poking at my own logical fallacies and hypocrisies, the motivations, the potential audience, the self-absorbed nature of navel gazing, the fact that I have to spell-check navel every time to make sure I’m not talking about ships….
I believe that most of us are walking bags of skin and bones full of emotion, ego, complexity, and contradictions. I believe all of that is, or at least can be, beautiful, fascinating, confusing, and scary all at the same time. I believe that only through the constant practice of trying to understand the self as a representation of all selves (as a non-self) can we approach an understanding of others. I deeply want to understand others and also want to understand others deeply.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to put in this particular blog post. After four or five years of writing, after sharing more than 1,000 published posts, after seeing up-ticks in reader statistics when I’ve met new people and down-ticks when one of us has moved on, I felt the need/urge to provide additional context echoing, but slightly beyond, what I say in my about me page and my various attempts to explain “putting it all out there.” Because I’ve moved to a new city where I’m meeting a lot of new people, some of whom will undoubtedly and understandably google me…. I thought I should add a preface or prologue or warning. I don’t think this product is hazardous to your health, but I’m also not the surgeon general. Side effects may include sleepiness, mild irritability, and a renewed interest in em dashes, ellipses, parenthetical asides, and lists with oxford commas.
I believe, and love, that we are, for the most part, an interdependent species. We rely on each other. For the most part, we need each other. I’m drawn to work that is collaborative in nature. I’m drawn to people who prefer to build and share as opposed to tear down and hoard. I like relationships that focus on co-creating. That said, I also dislike the fact that we need each other and that evolution has taught us that it’s necessary to form quick judgments about others. It’s important to identify potential harms before they occur. that said, I would love to live in a relatively judgment free society. Unfortunately, our systems of interacting with each other are driven by transactions and first impressions. This is my long-winded way of saying that I worry (perhaps needlessly) about the first impression my blog makes. We are constantly being evaluated and judged and it’s impossible for those doing the judging (potential partners, employers, colleagues, friends, and family) to see how multifaceted we are. This is my way of saying, “look at all of me, I’m multifaceted. I’m a human Swiss army knife. If the blade is dull, the corkscrew might still work.” In business, marketing, and strategic communications they talk about controlling the messaging, building a brand, and reputation management. The thing is, I don’t really want to do any of that. I want you to form your opinion on your own and over time without me trying to tell you how to form your opinion or what should be considered. My hesitancy in adding context to this blog is in trying to exert control over you the reader. Again, the best I can do is remind you that no matter what you’ve read or are reading, it’s only a snapshot. In addition to the dull blade and workable corkscrew, there’s a toothpick, some tweezers, and can opener, etc.
I write because, as a child, I was told I was good at this. I write because it’s my strongest form of communication. I write because it forces me to slow my brain down to the speed of my hands on the keyboard… and in a fast-paced world, I desperately want to slow down. I don’t want to rush towards the grave. Writing, much like love or anything else that requires, elicits, and captures our attention, is a way of slowing down time – almost stopping it. And if you’ve ever been in love, you know how amazing it feels to slow, bend, and stop time.
This writing, sharing, and examining thing is a strange process. More than anything, it’s an intimate conversation with myself. I suspect some of it is the type of conversation I’d have inside the confines and growth of a relationship or a therapy session (sometimes those two things can look eerily similar) – in which case, this is or has been an outlet for me. I’ve never been able to adequately answer the question, why make it public? Why share my private machinations with past, current, and future partners, friends, colleagues, and employers? Why share even more, in an overly surveilled world in which every piece of information about us is stored on some massive cloud-based system? On the surface, writing here feels like an attempt to simultaneously own and disown who I am. At times, it feels like a form of empowerment – you can’t take from me what I willingly give away.
I think writers and artists (titles I am very hesitant to ascribe to myself much less embrace) are frequently caught in this battle of wanting an audience and not wanting an audience, wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen. Revision: I think all people struggle with those things, but writers and artists dwell, ruminate, explore, and play with those dualities a bit more and be it through practice and/or privilege they have developed some of the tools necessary for excavating and giving shape to these craggy spaces that we call understanding.
If you’re still reading, bless your heart and by all means continue on. As a reminder, keep all hands and feet inside the ride at all times (unless, like me, you’re shaking your fist at a passing cloud). There’s a bowl of salt located at the entrance and in convenient spots along the way – take a grain or two when needed. The exit is the little x at the top of your browser tab or page. Complaints can be filed with management where they may or may not be addressed. I love fan mail and I reserve the right to shut the ride down or change direction abruptly and without warning.
Thank you for visiting. I’m glad you’re here.