Having some fun looking through what I wrote in 21 for the year of 2009. There aren’t a lot of posts, 44 in total for the entire 12 months (posting frequency was an issue, heh) but there are some in here that I’m pretty happy with.
Traces of Life Coaches Blog remained, with personal growth posts like The 3 Decluttering Boxes in January. I ventured into more poetic and personal writing like East Coast Night in February, which was something I wanted to do more of. I’m proud of the Martial Arts is Dealing with Self-Defense Failure post I published in March, I spent a lot of time making it as good as I could and it encapsulates a lot of what I think about martial arts and self-defense training today.
The 2 Ultimate Secrets to Blogging Like a Rock Star (Hint: it’s Not What You Want to Hear) in April was awesome, if I do say so myself. This was another post I spent a lot of time crafting, and I love how it combines snark with some serious thoughts about blogging well.
Lessons Learned at 30 was written in May, the month of my birthday in the year I turned the big three-oh. It was written in a rather reflective mood, imagining what advice I would give if I had the chance to speak to a younger me. I look forward to writing Lessons Learned at 40 a decade later, I wonder what I’ll have to say then.
My favorite blogs of 2009; the signals amongst the noise that taught me new things, made me think different, and made me want to write better.
To me, Merlin Mann is the sanest voice in all of productivity blogging (well, most times). He pointed out that if you’re spending a lot of time reading productivity blogs about how to be more productive, you really just need to get your ass back to work. Amen. I love this man’s honesty and the way he writes; funny, conversational and chocked full of thought.
Try Real Advice Hurts, The Problem with “Feeling Creative”, and NaNoWriMo: A Pep Talk and a Warning. If you have 37 minutes and 22 seconds, watch Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now). Long, but awesome.
Rory Miller wrote the excellent Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence and Chiron is his personal blog. It’s not always an easy read, he writes about aspects of violence and psychology that I think most of us living in cosy, peaceful lives don’t want to know about. But it’s real, and it opens my eyes. He recently wrote that “Chiron isn’t about growing readership and I’m not writing for you. We all know that.” I love that. Ironically, I think that commitment to honesty on his part is what drives people to read his blog anyway.
I’ve been writing here in 21 for about a year before I discovered a direction I’m comfortable with going for the next year or so, and that’s about living the creative life.
It seems obvious in retrospect – I’m a full-time writer who’s also been a full-time 3D artist, who studied digital media design in school and loves creative arts like graphic design and photography. Big duh.
But I always thought of them as separate things (well, they are). Subdued by the belief that only people who specialize are serious professionals, I thought of myself as a wannabe Jack-of-all-trades goofball, instead of realizing that the one denominator that links all of them up is the act of creativity.
So there it is. I dig the creative act and I want to write more about it. Thing is, I don’t think I would have been able to figure that far out if I hadn’t been writing about random topics at 21. The act of writing, thinking and looking back at what I’ve written has been as much a journey of self-discovery as it has been an act of self-expression.
And that’s one unfortunate aspect, I think, of some of the blogs out there that are trying to make it too hard, too fast. They specialize too early and then lock themselves in, without allowing themselves the chance to grow, explore and change.
Continuing from Parts 1 & 2 of my recent photographic trip to Tokyo, Japan, where I continue my exploration of street photography.
After grabbing a quick breakfast at the convenience store right next to this junction, I hung around while waiting for a call. I noticed the light was lovely that morning, took out my camera and started shooting. There’s something I like about this one. Makes me think of my own solitary early morning commutes to work, feeling like the weight of the day ahead was already upon me even before I’d started.
This was shot at another crossroads, about half an hour later at Omotesando Street. I spotted this beautiful mother and daughter pair from across the road and snapped a few photos, feeling again that mixture of excitement at getting a good shot and nervousness at disturbing someone else’s privacy.
This was a happy accident. I probably didn’t think too much of the shot at the time, and only saw this result later back at home. It’s not the best of compositions, but I love how the overexposed sky elevates the star from a Christmas ornament to something altogether mystical.
Omotesando Street, if you’re not familiar with it, is one of the glitzier shopping areas in Tokyo, with high-end boutiques and beautiful shopping centers. Its stores are filled with exquisite items, which are usually pretty high-priced, and its streets are filled with beautiful people – I saw some of the best dressed people I’ve ever seen here.
Continuing from Part 1 of my recent photographic trip to Tokyo, Japan.
The one day we went out of the city was the one day it kept drizzling. Instead of being disappointed though, I wondered if I could take advantage of the rainy weather. Sure enough, I realized that there were many beautiful colors and patterns in the umbrellas that people were carrying. In this shot, I love how the color of the umbrella complements the color of the temple in the background.
There was a price to shooting in the rain though. I realized very soon that I couldn’t shoot holding both an umbrella and a Canon 7D DSLR at the same time, so I abandoned the umbrella and walked around in the drizzle, tucking the camera into my jacket whenever I wasn’t shooting. Although it got really cold with the rain and the wind (around 10 degrees Celsius), I was more worried about the rain getting onto my DSLR than getting onto me! The Canon people assured me that the 7D was weather-proof, but I kept wiping raindrops off as fast as I could.
This is one of my favorite shots taken during the trip. I was wandering around the temple grounds when I noticed a spot where a few white birds were hanging around. I parked myself there and waited for them to start flying around, which they were quite happy to do every once in a while.