Why?

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted online regularly (I’m thinking back to those livejournal days). Lately, I’ve been writing in my (private) physical journal which serves a drastically different purpose. So, I’d like to outline some goals I have with this blog:

Knowledge share

I keep a lot of ‘Jen’s Tips’ (as my S.O. calls them) in my head. Decay theory suggests these memories will fade over time. Sometimes, I immortalize them in the form of Foursquare tips or Google Docs outlining things we did on a recent trip. There is a huge opportunity for organization and consistency here.

Inspire others

Maybe what I am doing is exciting or interesting to whoever stumbles upon this. If I could inspire or motivate someone to do something new or different, that would be pretty awesome.

Writing practice

Practice makes perfect, and I wish to become a better writer/storyteller.

Ego

Convince myself parts of what I’ve experienced so far is worth publishing articles about. This could boost my confidence and push me to do something I wouldn’t otherwise consider doing.

Be more of an open book

In the past year, I’ve become more of a private person, keeping both failures and accomplishments to myself (and to a small circle of friends). I’d like to change this. As the yin to the yang of my ’ego’ goal, being an open book will hopefully keep me humble.

Contribute to the Human Diary of the Human Memorial Project¹

In case of alien invasion or other anticipated civilization-ending event, I want these thoughts and experiences to be blasted off into space to build my cosmic legacy. It seems more effective than sending my name to Mars.

^{1: "[The] Human Memorial Project[’s] goal [is to be] the comprehensive collection of data and commemorative artifacts of human civilization that would ultimately be sent out into the cosmos on unmanned spacecraft. The project’s most influential component was called the Human Diary, a Web site that was set up to allow as many people as possible to record their lifetimes in the form of text and images from their everyday lives, to become part of the data of civilization." - Excerpt from The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (translated by Joel Martinsen)}