A Long Rambling Post To Explain To Myself Why I'm Starting A Blog

Because I'm a naturally shit parent, I was in a parenting skills class, and in the last session, the psychologist/facilitator suggested that I start a parenting blog because I'd made useful contributions to the group. I don't know if they were politely setting me up to talk to anyone-but-them, sarcastic or genuine, but I decided that I wanted to do it.

Since The Divorce, I've struggled with figuring out what the fuck happened to me, how to be a better person and where to find useful resources that aren't the collective obliviousness of Men Going Their Own Way, Not All Men, Men's Rights Activists, Incels and Pick Up Artists. As soon as I look for self-help resources, I seem to fall into an algorithmic YouTube funnel that puts that nascent fascism shit front-and-centre (along with ads for multi-level internet marketing scams). 

The world is full of bitter men complaining about their crazy ex and child support payments. I'm still hurting and bitter, but that's not what I want to spread here. I wanted to curate something different.

I have no silver bullets to offer; this is a slog, and every time I get to the top of the parenting or personal-development mountain, I find out that there is another bigger mountain to climb just over the ridge. The aim of the game is to be better every day than the days before. Sometimes I fail.

When I tell a story, I will change details, sometimes to make the point of the story clearer, and sometimes to merge multiple stories into a single story.

Normally you start a story at the beginning, but in this case, I don’t think that works because I'm in the middle as I'm writing it. I will share stuff in the order it occurs to me, and see where it takes me.

I’m going to spend more time linking you to things I found useful than writing original content, because there are lots of people who are much better than me at explaining these things.

At best, I may help someone. At worst, I'm just making soothing noises into the void. I can live with that.

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