400

After my 300th entry I thought that the tradition I made out of making a big deal out of every hundredth entry was getting played out, but still it's become something of a habit and I've decided to stick with it. With this particular marker though, I'm doing something a little different for the sake of National Novel Writing Month, which I'm currently participating in as you may be aware. For this marker I'm going to attempt to have my word count at exactly 1,009 as that is what I'll need to be at my 10,000th word for the month so far. Let's see how I do! As I said before in my entry on Adderall, my writing has gone through a bit of a transformation recently and I've definitely noticed my thoughts flowing more freely and consistently. It's not that they weren't totally consistent before, it's just that they're more so now and I'm more happy with how my writing is coming out. I feel as though that's to be expected when one makes a consistent habit out of writing. If you do something on a regular basis, you're sure to find yourself improving correct? This doesn't just apply to writing, it's the case with any practice that one might undertake, whether it be picking up a sport, a musical instrument, or attempting to create art in any other fashion. As you become consistent, you will become better. I've never been one to believe that anyone is just naturally gifted at anything. Sure there are those that have a knack for certain practices, but if they neglect to maintain their abilities they will surely become out of practice just like anyone else. Another wonderful thing that I've realized which makes this milestone significant is that I'm writing my 400th entry not long after my 2nd anniversary of starting this blog. Yes, I started this website 2 years and one week ago, and here I am. I'm quite happy that I've been as consistent as I have, but there's always room for improvement. After all, constantly moving forward and building yourself is an aspect that is central to my worldview so to neglect that would be contradictory to some of my closest held convictions. I write quite often, but I could still do more. There were some periods over the course of these past two years when I fell out of practice. Granted there were sometimes reasons for that, but there were also times when I didn't have an excuse. For Gods sake, I didn't stop writing throughout rehab, so why on earth would I think taking a break when things are going fine is acceptable? Actually, I know the answer to that. I've often found myself writing in times of hardship, when I was struggling, and when I really needed to understand myself and the world around me. Another noteworthy change in my writing is that these entries have become significantly longer than the ones from the beginning. I'd say that's largely due to the fact that through the practice of chronicling my thoughts, I've gotten better at delving further into depth of them. In the beginning, many of my scribblings were very short and generic and while they aren't perfect now, I would confidently say that they're much more hashed out. Just look at this entry for example. Right before writing this, I took a look at my other three 100th entries and they are all quite short. In those, I didn't really do anything other than say "hey look at me, I wrote another hundred blog articles" which makes me question whether or not I should really count those as legitimate pieces of my work. Ultimately however, I don't plan on ever deleting anything I've written on here mainly for the reason that I want to be able to have a record to look back on and point to as an example of how far I've come. Some of my earlier entries on here, and quite a bit of my earlier writing in general was terrible, but I'll never get rid of any of it. I need to have it in order to understand myself, just as in other aspects of my life. I don't believe in denying your past. I don't believe it's doing anyone any good, especially not yourself, to cover up your past slip-ups. The same goes with addiction recovery, which is definitely a topic that I discuss frequently. Many people I've met who are in recovery like to say that they are a "new person" and I understand that sentiment, as they've definitely made a significant lifestyle change, however to say that they aren't who they were before seems foolhardy to me. I say foolhardy because it carries with it the implication that due to the fact that they are supposedly a new person, they won't make the same mistakes they did in the past. This strikes me as dangerous. In my own case, I don't regard myself as being a "new man" since I got clean and sober. I'm exactly who I was before, just more wary of the fact that there are certain practices that don't vibe with myself. If I start thinking that I'm not in any danger of falling into my old pitfalls because I've had some kind of miraculous change of character, the way I see it, I'm almost bound to reencounter those same pitfalls. The same goes for my writing. Understanding the mistakes of your past is crucial to changing the direction of your future. I actually spoke with a relative about the concept of dwelling on versus understanding mistakes and found that he and I are very much on the same page in our assessment that it's crucial to be aware of your shortcomings and your faulty actions, but if you get into the habit of dwelling on them without changing anything then you'll be trapped in an unproductive cycle that can be damaging to your mental and emotional health. I'll never deny that. Rutabaga.