You may ask, "Why is he writing about any of this?".

Well first off, if you're reading this then you're at least semi-intrigued about what I have to say. You may not value it, you may not agree with it, and you may not respect it, but you're at least still here reading for now. So if you're here reading, then there's at least some audience intrigued by what I might write and I hope we all learn something.

Second, even if no one ever reads any of this and it gets lost in the endless expanse of the Internet, I find value in writing. Writing about my thoughts or experiences is not a common habit of mine. However, writing forces me to reflect. I have to take time to gather my ideas. I have to consider how my ideas and the ideas I hear fit together. Do they co-exist? Did I learn something that contradicts a belief and now I have to reconcile the differences? I have to evaluate both myself and my surroundings before I can write it down. 

Third, writing helps me commit things to memory. I always wrote a bunch of notes throughout school. I would take notes even if the lesson was easy or if the teacher's notes where available online, because I realized that writing helped me remember the lessons more fully. I could picture where I had written notes in my notebook that were related to a question on a test, and it would help me remember the solution. So, even if you don't find anything I write to be useful, I write because it helps me remember what I learned or experienced.

Lastly, I'm sharing my unique experience as a human being. Take a moment to think about how every person, dead or alive, has a unique human experience. Every single person you pass by on the sidewalk, or wait behind in line to order food, or drive past in traffic, they all have their own experience to what it means to be human. They all have their own celebrations, their own trials, their own emotions, their own values, their own beliefs, and their own stories. We can relate to each other through common experiences, like remembering the stress of an important test coming up, or the concern when your job was in the air, or the exhaustion when you came down with the flu, or the exhilaration of a rollercoaster. But the best we can do is project our own prior experiences and emotions onto someone else because we can never actually perceive someone else's human experience. So, since we're all on our own journey in our lives, I think journaling can help build some empathy and compassion. We're not the same, but we're maybe not so different either. 

Please be gracious when reading since I won't be correct in everything I write. The great part about being human is that we can change, adapt, and grow over time. My thoughts will change as I change. So I may write something, and then later realize I disagree with it. I think that is just fine.