Why am I never happy with things the way they are? I have to have the newest, coolest, bestest. It’s more than apparent with these thoughts. They started with me copying someone else’s cool idea. I’ve updated the design of these thoughts several times, always trying to make them cooler. I added images at the top, I added the reading/watching/listening/surfing suggestions on the side, but I’m never quite happy. I look at my friends who have database driven blogs. They’re cool. They have comments and neato calendar displays and search capabilities and all this cool stuff you get with a database system. Yet I’ve resisted that step because I wanted more control, or some such nonsense. And now I’m thinking that I want to forsake control to have those spiffy features.

I think when it comes down to it I just like to play with web-based toys. But it has to be purposeless fun. I sat down today to work on a web site I was supposed to design months ago. I spent the time ogling database-driven blogs instead. What is wrong with me? My biggest fear is that I’ll spend countless hours converting these thoughts to a database system, only to find the next cool thing six months down the line and have to do it all over again. That seems to be the cycle of life.

And of all times to think of doing this, I pick when I’m unemployed. What a dangerous time suck.

Some days I feel I just need to sit down and write something before it all slips away. Not that I have anything coherent to say. I just need to let some of it tumble out and be captured in some lame form before it vanishes. Sorry you have to be around for the spills. Though sometimes, on rare occasions, something beautiful comes out of a mess.

Sometimes I get all reflective about my ponderings, and it’s kind of goofy. This is one of those times, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

I’ve been kicking around this idea of collecting these thoughts into a book-type format. Admittedly, part of the motivation is to make a buck. I just as well come out and say that. My idealistic young self of four years ago would have been appalled at that, but I’ve learned a bit about reality since then. I’m now paying for the education I was receiving then, I’m now paying for my room and board, I’m paying for my own gas and my own car. I can’t rely on mommy and daddy anymore, and I’ve learned that life is hard. There’s a point where an artist has to sell them self if they hope to survive on their art. The only pure art is financially independent.

Of course I’m also realistic enough to know that a collection of my late-night ponderings won’t exactly make a lot of money. Maybe a buck is a good estimate. So knowing that making a profit is a slim prospect, it becomes more of the joy of capturing and appropriately packaging almost five years worth of artist expression. It’s more a project than a business venture, though it’s certainly a mix of both.

I read a few old entries tonight, and it’s bizarre to see how much things have changed. When I started these thoughts I was a sophomore in college. I had been dating a girl for almost three years. I was entering a very idealistic phase. I was beginning to leave some of the opinions of my youth behind and was starting to find my own way. A lot of contradictions exist.

In some ways I’m eager to see a collected volume, to see the inherent contradictions in a person’s life, to let them spill across the years. At some point in the past five years I’d probably be disappointed to see where I am now, paying a mortgage, working a 9 to 5 job (until recently anyway). Yet life goes where it will, and as much as we think we know what we want to do and where we want to go, we’re often dead-wrong.

There’s also something about a bound volume. As much as I love the computer, you can’t curl up with it on the couch and do some Sunday afternoon reading. Even with a curvy iBook you’re not going to last long. A book you can get comfortable with. You can write notes in the margins, you can underline favorite passages (the thought of someone underlining bits of my writing is oddly thrilling and intimidating). There’s an intimacy that exists between the printed page and a reader that the computer can’t duplicate. The computer can foster other intimacies, but books have that special something.

I’ll have to keep thinking about this. It’s an odd project to contemplate, especially something of such a non-stable nature. But I still see value in the difficulties, possibilities in the contradictions. We’ll have to see.

Cafepress.com now makes books. Why order a basement full of books no one wants to buy anyway when you can self publish your book one at a time? Well, cost is probably the biggest modivator, as is the case with all things Cafepress, but who wants to hassle with shipping, storage, and fulfillment? Can’t someone else do it? And that’s where you pay.

I find the idea pretty intriguing. Anyone interested in forking over $20 for a handsome, bound version of ReAL Thoughts? Complete with photos by yours truly? Complete with a running commentary of why I said or did stupid things? With outdated material and links that don’t transfer to print removed (how convenient!)? I’ll even throw in a layman’s guide to explain what the heck I was talking about on those really convuluted days. Any interest in something like that? Just picking my unemployed brain for ways I can make money by staying home and potty training my dog.

How about a collection of embarrasing things I wrote in high school? Complete with the thrilling dating advice column “Dating Tips for the Truly Romantic Gentlemen” by none other than Joe Gentlemen (he’s a friend of mine)? Complete with my thrilling high school column “The Unnamed Column”? How about I throw in my archive of “Pointless Quotes” from the Table Tent in college? Any takers? Oh nevermind.

So I went on this self-absorbed rant yesterday about what a doorknob I am. Blog-confessionals are a bit weird, because in essence you’re broadcasting your flub to the entire planet. And when your flub is being big-headed, that seems a bit counter-productive. But in this case I think it helped. I didn’t get an avalanche of e-mail from devoted fans telling me how cool they think I am (and thankfully no e-mails from my frantic mother). I didn’t see thousands of dots on my guestmap (which I won’t anyway, because it only holds 40 at a time). I did see three more dots on my map and I got one e-mail from someone who calls me “Journally Man.” That one person even quoted some Madeliene L’Engle at me, who I apparently introduced them to. You can’t ask for more than that.

That one e-mail reminded me why I do this. Four and a half years ago, I wrote these words describing why I was starting this online journal: “I just hope that at times my jumbled mess of thoughts will make sense to someone, and make them think. Maybe you’ll step away from your computer screen a changed person. Or maybe you’ll just laugh and shake your head.”

The goal isn’t fame or money or traffic–it’s simply sharing a little hope and making people think. That’s all I really need to worry about. Of course it’s never that easy, but it’s the thought that counts.

I think part of my ego problem is that I always think I’m something that I’m not. I have a writing major and I like to write, so I think that makes me a world-famous writer. I may have that potential in me, but it doesn’t mean anything unless I prove it. And maybe making a few people think through this silly website is more than enough. But part of me itches for that published fame, and I think it may be greed. I’ve read enough books about writing to know that writers are poor. Rookies like me put so much stock in being published, in writing a book, in seeing our name in lights. We forget that being published is terribly hard work, that proceeds from a book amount to squat, that only a handful of writers make the bigtime money.

You’d think I’d just accept that and move on. But I don’t. So my head is wrapped up in ego, in pride, in selfishness, in greed, in glory. Forgive me Father, for I am but a man.

I miss the confessional in the liturgical calendar.

I’ve added a new feature to real thoughts, GuestMap! It’s this goofy tool I found on the web today where people can add comments to your site by showing where they are on a world map. Geeky fun, I know, but I thought it’d be worth a twirl. Map away.

The blogger phenomenon is exploding as people begin to tweak the concept with their own creative ideas. The second Gulf War was an immense help, proving that underground journalism can be faster, more efficient, and better than the real thing. Forget imbedded journalists, how about the actual people living through the hell of war. Blogs have been able to tell stories of the war like traditional journalism can’t. They give more than a 30 second news byte, and let you get as much or as little as you want. Power to the people.

And now blogs are going to a new level, playing with the bounds of reality. The beauty of the Internet is that no one knows if you’re telling the truth. Pedophiles and abusers have been using that fact for years. Hollywood has even cashed in, using the anonymity of the web to promote movies to an increasingly over-advertised audience. Flight Risk is a new weblog, supposedly written by a girl on the run from her wealthy family, trying to avoid an arranged marriage. Debate rages as to whether or not this blog is for real. If it’s a fake, it’s been painstakingly researched. Acquisitions Editors are hoping to get in touch with the writer, whether or not it’s true. Other suspect the book deal has already been made, and this is pre-release hype, drawing people into a compelling story online and then getting them to buy the book.

Fake or not, it makes for good entertainment. And a brilliant use of the web. If only I could turn these thoughts into a brilliant tale of mystery and intrigue and sell some sucker on the book deal.