On February 29, I logged into Wordpress and published my reflections on how two books I read in 2011 changed my life. This moment was a long time coming. People around me have suggested I try writing something, anything, for years.
The process of finally turning a lifetime of disorganized writing in my head (thinking) into organized thinking in print (writing) presented a number of challenges. Some (such as doing the actual writing) I successfully anticipated. Others (such as proofreading) I was less prepared for.
I remember the first task that posed a challenge was naming. Naming the posts were tricky enough. But at least if I named a post poorly, I could resolve to do better the next time. I eventually stopped worrying about naming posts.
The blog itself was a bigger challenge. Once named, a blog is difficult to rename. I know more people who have changed their name than I do blogs.
So, I considered my options carefully throughout the month of February. I used up all the time I could. Thankfully, it was a leap year and I took full advantage of the calendar quirk. After deliberating throughout the month, I went with A Full Blog.
I do not recall if I was happy or unhappy with the decision. The facts show that, after about four posts, I changed the name to True On Average. I obviously was not happy enough to keep it! Since that moment, I have not given the name of this blog a second (third?) thought. (1)
Like a lot of origin stories, the True On Average name is much less interesting in practice than in concept. One day, I was listening to a podcast. The host made a comment about something being true, on average. I laughed, then thought- 'hey, that kind of describes the pseudo-truth I post here! Maybe that name will work better than A Full Blog.' And here we are.
Unlike A Full Blog, I did not get any questions about True On Average. Readers accepted the name for what it was. I think this is mostly because it is a good name for a blog.
On the other hand, I was asked a lot of questions about A Full Blog. (I do not see this as proof that the original name was a bad one, of course, but I think it was obvious to observers that the name was something I came up with after some amount of thought. So, given evidence of a thought process, readers naturally inquired about that process.)
I gave many reasons in response to this question, all of them true. Like for many things, though, whenever there are a lot of collected reasons, there is usually a much simpler 'real reason' underlying the whole explanation.
I'm reminded of the real reason about once per year. Early in December, ESPN highlights the achievements and ongoing efforts of The V Foundation for Cancer Research during its annual 'Jimmy V Week'. Held in honor of former NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano, all the money raised goes directly to support the efforts of the foundation.
Valvano, despite coaching his 1983 team to an improbable NCAA tournament championship, is best-known for his speech at the 1993 ESPN awards show, the Espys. He took the stage in the midst of a year-long battle with bone cancer, a disease he would succumb to just two months later. Valvano somehow puts aside the debilitating pain of his illness for ten minutes to deliver an unforgettable speech. At the conclusion of the speech, he announces the creation of the foundation dedicated to the research required for finding a cure for cancer.
For quite a few years in a row, I've made it a point to watch the speech sometime in December. It is certain to rank among the best speeches I will ever hear. Having watched it in its entirety somewhere between five and ten times, I know the content of it well enough to think back to it at unexpected times.
One such time was in February. I was considering starting a blog with more seriousness than ever before. I considered what topics such a project would lead me to write about. At some point, I remembered the following quote from the speech:
'To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.'
I've always really liked his idea of a full day, one where you think, you laugh, and you cry. It's a heck of a speech, a full speech, for the same reasons. As I considered different approaches for the blog, the loose direction of the 'full' definition provided a possible path down which to wander.
So, despite the honest answer I gave to questions, naming the blog A Full Blog was a quiet tribute to my favorite speech. It clarified what I would try to write about- my attempt at a fuller life, filled with the things that made me think, laugh, or cry.
Things are never as simple as you plan, particularly when the plans are really simple. As it turns out, writing about thinking is fairly straightforward. Humor and emotion, not so much. I can work bits and pieces of those into my writing from time to time but not many posts so far explicitly focused on what I found funny or what moved my emotions.
When I suspect I've written something good, it is almost always because I feel the writing will make a reader think, laugh, or cry. In these moments, I feel like I've successfully done what I set out to do. The ongoing challenge of accomplishing this time and again is that everyone thinks, laughs, or cries for different reasons.
Each of these three ideas plays a role in helping people relate to one another. From my own experience, I know I am uncomfortable watching someone cry over what fails to move me. To remain unamused while others laugh or to fail to keep pace with another's line of thinking always reminds me of how I differ from others. The failure to relate to others in these instances eventually leaves me feeling isolated.
The greatness of this speech is in how well I relate to Valvano's experience. I've never coached college basketball but I can relate to his imposter's feeling, of being in charge without experience, confidence tilting toward arrogance, thinking 'I'm twenty-one years old, the kids are nineteen, and I'm going to be the greatest coach in the world'. I know exactly what it's like to realize what I'm doing won't be enough and yet resolve to keep going, anyway. What else can you do when it's just being who you are?
It is amazing that this speech resonates so deeply with so many. I bet one reason is because the speech makes people think, laugh, and cry. Do that every day and you'll really start to relate to other people. If you can cultivate the empathy and understanding to do that seven days a week, replenishing rather than depleting yourself in the process, you'll become something really special.
Here is a link to the speech. As many others have pointed out before me, it is very much worth the ten minutes.
Thanks as always for reading. Back again next Wednesday.
Tim
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Who, what, when, how...
I originally wrote this post in April in
The catch was that, after I answered each question, I would give the real reason- the point of the whole exercise was to look at how, for a given reason, there is always an underlying 'real reason'. In the original post, I would do this by asking 'why' as a follow up to each answer. Anyone familiar with second-graders will recognize the tactic.
Unfortunately, though I did find the post helpful as an organizing principle for the blog, I did not see how it could be of any interest at all to an eager reader (unless they really liked the board game Clue). So I decided to sit on it until I wrote about the Jim Valvano speech.
Here is a stripped-down summary of the rubbish I shelved back in April.
Q: What?
A: Things I've learned, mostly from reading, but I'm open to anything. Bang bangs, bike riding, books, it's like Clue, really, I'll just try to consistently explore new area and figure out the whole thing as I go.
Q: Why?
A: Well, the idea is to improve at writing. I suspect writing is mostly formalizing what I think about. I mostly think about what I read but sometimes I just think.
Q: Who?
A: Just me, for now.
Q: That's not like Clue. You figure out who at the end.
A: Fine. Well, guest posts are welcome, I suppose, so maybe sometimes it won't be just me.
Q: Why?
A: Collaborating for a pointless blog seems like a nightmare for now. But if someone finishes a post and they want me to put it here, that person can be my guest. I used to do that with my fantasy football league's newsletter.
I'll probably do a similar alter-ego type thing if I ever start writing about specific topics, like playing FIFA or being a business bro.
Q: When?
A: Tuesday and Fridays, between 11am and noon. To keep readers on their toes, I'll use a random number generator to pick the exact minute.
Q: Why?
A: Well, you know, its like Clue, even if you don't know anything you have to start somewhere. Two days a week seemed reasonable enough, even with how long editing and proofreading turned out to be.
The 11am to noon posting block targets the demographic I think I'll appeal to most: the bored at lunch nine-to-fiver. I might not be worth reading, yet, but I probably won't lose readers, either, if I ask for their attention when it is already wandering.
Q: Where?
A: Well, its True On Average now but it used to be A Full Blog.
Q: That's not much like Clue, either, though I suppose maybe it you aren't any good at it you might get the location wrong.
A: What's with all this Clue stuff?
Q: You made the Clue analogy, clueless, not me. I'm just pointing out rubbish where I see it.
A: Whatever.
Q: Why?
A: Why what?
Q: Why True On Average?
A: I switched over to True On Average after hearing an EconTalk podcast where the host, Russ Roberts, made a remark about how something his guest declared true as actually being closer to 'true on average'. I thought it made a lot of sense as a summary for what I write about- there is a certain lack of rigor in how I present facts but I try to avoid acting as if outright statements of opinion apply universally. Despite publishing my first four posts on A Full Blog, I liked the phrase enough to transition over within a week of hearing that podcast.
Q: Why A Full Blog, initially?
A: I originally called it A Full Blog for a small collection of reasons.
First, the pronunciation is easily stretched to sound like 'Awful Blog' and the wordplay involved appealed to me.
Also, it was unknown at the time whether I could maintain some semblance of a set schedule. Recognizing this, I chose a blog name behind which I could hide. If I ever went over a week between posts, I could just say 'the blog is always full' to those wondering when the next post was.
A less than obvious name also creates its own content. I feared a bleak day in the future (editor's note: December 9, 2016) where my ability to generate ideas would abandon me. Therefore, having a post ready to go on the topic of the blog name itself served the need for a safety net in the event I found my blogging inkwell dry.
