Back To Basics

Hi, I’m Ian. You don’t know me yet, but you should know that I care about you. No, seriously. I care. About YOU.

I’m starting this blog in January of 2021, which should tell you a lot about the state of the world and of the United States (where I live) right now.

The date matters here because this is a very different blog than the one I originally set out to write.

Originally, I set out to write about politics.

Here, at the beginning of a new Presidential administration, I was itching to dust off my old journalism degree and make my mark on the world with my brilliant political coverage. I saw myself writing opinion pieces on the damage being done by our deeply partisan system. I had lofty ideas for using my (mostly finished) political science minor to pen explainer pieces about how government was intended to work. I had an idea for an ongoing series of tweets calling out stupid and egregious partisan comments in Congress with a witty #Okbuddy. It would be great! I could help unite people by pointing out the obvious! There was just one problem:

When I actually took a minute to reflect on them…all of those ideas made me feel terrible.

So, flash forward to yesterday, January 19th, the day before the inauguration. I was sitting in traffic, trying to figure out what I could actually do to help people in this crazy time we are in, wondering how to do that in a way I could feel good about. My years-old college ambitions of being a politics and policy reporter had lead me to writing, but covering politics now just felt wrong. I wasn’t going to help anyone or solve anything by adding to that noise. I knew I wanted to write, if nothing else writing is cathartic for me, but how could I make it useful? The answer came to me as a question. I simply asked myself how I could best love each person I come in contact with.

And that question has led me (and by extension, you) here. The point of this blog is to put thoughts and ideas out there that bring me peace, or help me strive toward being a better person, in the hopes that they will help someone else too. That someone is you. My aim is to help you feel seen and cared about, to give you a little bit of my own introspection in an attempt to share the good feelings I find.

So, yeah, I care about you. I see you. Even though I don’t know you, I’m trying to love you. Just remember there’s at least one person out there who’s in your corner: me. And now I ask you the same question I asked myself

How will you best love all those you come in contact with?

Thanks for reading, you can do this,

–Ian