Scoring a Century
Celebrating a small writing milestone and the evolution of a writer’s work through application of the craft.
Today is something of a red-letter day in the diary of my life as a labourer of litterae curiosius scriptae. Actually my diary these days, like the diary of any self-respecting flâneur, runs on batteries and makes no allowances for rubric. Nevertheless today is a rather special day, a day to raise a glass of your favourite fermented beverage and kick up one’s heels.
I am not, as you might suspect, referring to the anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin. While certainly a groundbreaking work, sufficient to provide researchers, religious leaders and Fox News something to argue about forever more, that is not the reason for my merrymaking and requisite hullabaloo. (Though it must be said that any occasion that allows the use of the delightful word ‘hullabaloo’ in a sentence is worthy of celebration by itself.)
No, today I have, as they say in the game of cricket, scored a century. Today’s essay represents the 100th entry posted to my website. Reaching such a milestone in my writing life holds tremendous significance for me, as it solidifies my purpose in creating these daily missives.
It’s true to say that many ‘bloggers,’ essayists and other digital scribblers have a far larger body of work — and it must be said, a far larger readership — than I do, but those comparisons are largely meaningless and ultimately self-defeating.
A look back on my previous work provides an interesting examination into where my attention was focused at that time. The early days saw me pen essays with much more of a (pardon the ghastly term) ‘professional’ bent, from inequities in advertising to the importance of quality assurance testing. Along with the definite improvement in word choices and phraseology that occurs for any writer who continues to develop the craft (I must admit my earliest posts make me cringe slightly, like reading poetry you wrote in junior high school), there’s a distinct tonal change evident in my work. I was angrier back then, full of righteous fury about something or another. Whether I was taking on a large consumer electronics company for their tone deaf marketing or lamenting the state of modern journalism, I seemed to be always dipping my pen in the vitriol to write a scathing remonstrance against anyone foolish enough to fall within my crosshairs.
Of course, I wasn’t always filled with this angry — and it must be said, vaguely pompous — indignation about the world. Occasionally, I wrote about topics that moved me, such as my open letter to women working in the technology industry, which was less about anger and more about a feeling of responsibility and terrible guilt by association.
Lately my topic range has broadened considerably, and as a result my tone has lightened as well. I have no desire to be a perpetually outraged observer ranting about all that’s wrong with the world — the internet is replete with such apoplectic aristarchs now. I’d prefer to bring suggestions for why the world is the way it is, instead of supposedly definitive answers that are merely opinions anyway.
My interests have always been extremely broad, but its only recently that I’ve allowed myself to truly explore them using this medium. In the words or Bertrand Russell:
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
The world and the beings with which we share it are both maddening and yet fascinating, horrible and yet beautiful, banal and yet exciting, but always worthy of my attention, and my words.
At the very least… it gives us something to talk about.