How can I bring you along on my journey? How can I show you what I’ve learned in the hopes that you too will learn. I’m not necessarily trying to teach you anything.
Or am I?
What is my objective for writing? Do I feel a need to illuminate? Do I feel a need to help? I like the idea of helping.
Am I trying to sell books? That is part of it. I like the artist’s lifestyle. I want to have the time to be creative. To learn, ponder, document and share.
Will you benefit from me taking you on my journey? To follow me, you want to be taken along a path. You don’t want to be told about the path, you want to see it develop. You want to watch it unfold in front of you like it did for me.
Can I do that? Was there a series of events that I can walk through that will highlight the journey I took? Are the experiences and revelations I’ve had teachable? And is that what I want to teach?
I don’t like that word – teach. Both of my parents were teachers. They met at a New England teaching college – he taught industrial arts and she taught home economics. I don’t want to be like them. When I think of teaching I think of someone that knows the answers to the tests; then directly or indirectly give you those answers over the course of the class.
But maybe that is a limiting way of looking at it. Let me flip it around.
Do I want you to learn? Will I be happier if I help you to understand what I’ve learned? Will I get a kick out of seeing you transform your view of the world and your place in it?
The answer is yes. A resounding Yes.
But I don’t want to apply any force. What I have to say is not necessarily what you want or are ready to hear. I’ve always found proselytizers difficult. What’s good for you is not necessarily good for me. But if you want to learn, then I’m all in. I will gladly jump through hoops to help.
I do want to help you learn. If that is a teacher, so be it. Maybe there is a better descriptor, but we can go with teacher for now.
So it goes back to you. I’m up for being a teacher. Do you want to be a learner? I know I will learn as well.
The thing is you don’t know if you want to learn from me. You don’t know if you can trust me. Do my answers apply to you? Am I just blowing hot air?
It’s like a movie. You don’t know if you want to see the movie until you know about it. You see a preview. You see interviews with actors and directors. Your friends see it. You get to make an informed decision to watch or not.
After my books gets published and reviewed, you will be able to make an informed choice. But until then, how can I get you to be excited? How can I get you to tell your friends about what you’ve read and tell your friends?
I hope that this blog is a way to do that. Maybe there will be enough to give you pause. And hopefully enough for you to want to read the book.
Then I can tell you more. Then if you choose, you will be ready to learn more and I’ll be ready to teach more. The journey will come for both of us.
