On This Blog – Update (Oscar Wilde week)

Recently a reader (shoutout to my friend Steven) commented,

“Quick question. You keep saying that you’re starting a series on X (details, acting, etc.). But you rarely explicitly ever do.”

To address this and other concerns of my own, I’d like to give you guys a brief update and share w/you some of my “behind-the-scenes” thoughts on the blog:

1 MYRIAD CATEGORIES

I’m serially starting new categories to lay the framework for the future. I won’t always have time to write longer intro posts, but I have a HUGE backlog of posts I’ve jotted down notes for w/in the existing categories, and I should be able to knock them out pretty quickly. In general, starting new categories helps me orient my thinking, so I can filter my experiences relevantly, and for the long run. This thing’s not going away anytime soon.

2 SCREW THE CATEGORIES, I DON’T LIKE THEM ALL THAT MUCH ANYWAY

That being said, while categories have their uses, I’m increasingly feeling the limitations they impose. The fact is, everyone organizes information differently based on their own life experiences and preferences, and they make connections in their mind accordingly.

3 RENEGADE POSTS

With this in mind, expect to soon see a lot of “uncategorized” posts – material that will still be relevant, but that doesn’t necessarily fit tidily under labels. And when I say relevant, I don’t mean boring. There’s going to be a lot of stuff that may be “out there” (but still relevant), simply because I love free-form thinking and drawing from disparate sources for inspiration.

Who says you need to exclusively study depression/XYZ to best understand depression/XYZ? Hell, I’d say that’s a terrible way to go about it, and a terrible way to go through life. Realize that a lot of what I’m trying to do is to get you to think more creatively, to imagine. Break free from stale thinking!

4 SHORTER POSTS – SNAPSHOTS

Very soon you won’t have to slog through my verbosity to pick up insights. Partly because of emerging time constraints, and partly because I think it’s better, soon many future posts will just be snapshots of life as I live it, and I won’t be so despotic about framing those snapshots in a certain way.

The fact is, things are complex, and I’m no authority on anything.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

-Oscar Wilde

So I’ll put down what I think is valuable raw material, filtered slightly through the lens of my (rapidly evolving) worldview. Then you can piece together the snapshots and draw your own conclusions. I hate dogma anyway.

5 READER RESPONSES

I owe two – I haven’t forgotten, just give me more time! Sorry!

6 READER (YOU GUYS!) INTERACTION

We’re working on it, give us a month (likely less) and it’ll be there.

7 OSCAR WILDE

I’ve chosen my first monologue for acting class from Oscar Wilde’s work. I’m utterly not suited to play Oscar Wilde, and all the authorities say it’s a bad move to choose like this, but I dig his stuff and think it’ll be a great experience for me as an actor, even if I mangle it horribly (it’s incredibly hard to find good monologues for Asians anyway). Plus, I think his forward-thinking ideas hold enormous potential for helping those who struggle with depression.

So, I’ll be immersing myself in Oscar Wilde this week, and you can pretty definitely expect to see that trickle into this blog.

And that’s what’s up for now, blog-wise.

-David

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