After Realizing...

I am re-starting After Fighting… again. It will be different. The impetus for posts is the same: the things that come into my life that interest me, spark some sort of curiosity, that I want to talk about and share. I realize now the problem with the way I posted before was in how epic I needed the posts to be when getting across my point. I would have to sit down and compose an essay explaining my ideas. Yeah, that took too much time. So much time that the majority of the ideas for my posts would never see their way to completion. I was over the idea before it got to the blog, and another, more intriguing idea would be consuming my mind.

So what to do about this problem. The blog has been sitting dormant for some time now. And that doesn’t feel right either. I need deadlines. I need to be concise. I want more of my ideas to make it to the publishing step. After Fighting… will be structured on the idea that I will take one photo each day over the next year. Then I may or may not add additional commentary. The things I write about may be directly based on or juxtaposed with the photo I post.

This isn’t one of my New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions are crutches for people who can’t resolve their problems when they arise. I would hope that a person would be able to make ongoing resolutions throughout the year, when it makes sense for them to do so, not when the mass of society is doing the same inane task.

No, After Fighting… is spurred by the same catharsis from its inception: that when after you have wrestled and wrestled with something in your life, all you can do is let go, give into it. To make the best of the future you might have to disregard the tragic past and make things work, because they have to. Make it stupid, banal; turn it around and make it work for yourself. Really, there is no choice involved. Kate Gleason (the author of the poem for which this blog is named) writes: “’After Fighting for Hours’ was the result of trying to write about what it takes to keep a marriage together over the long haul, to go the distance, and how the key to doing that is often of an elemental, illogical, and nonverbal nature, simply letting the dumb animals of our bodies take their course.”

'After Fighting' continues...