What Wil Said
I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog for a while now, and while I enjoy the funny stories, the geek commentaries, and the occasional poker anecdotes, I think the one thing that makes sure I keep him in my bookmarks is that he’s willing to get introspective and try and work through his thought process in some of his blog posts. I can definitely relate to that; sometimes I think I’m too prone to navel-gazing. (And ironically, R.E.M.’s “Bittersweet Me” is playing just as I type this, a song in which navel-gazing plays a lyrical role.) But I think it’s worth doing for the self-discovery, and I think it’s worth sharing because heck, someone else might be able to relate to it. (And in keeping with the parenthetical theme here, that’s one of the things that Michael Stipe says he realized after a few years of lyric-writing, which made him willing to be more direct in his writing – at times.) I can definitely say that’s true for Wil’s writing – there are posts I’ve read where he really does nail a thought process I’ve gone through many times myself. An example would be this post, which starts off with Wil talking about a reader who described meeting Wil years ago, and that being a positive experience. Wil takes that incident and uses it as a springboard to talk about occasions where he’s less pleased with how he acted, and how he still beats himself up over those things. And that’s the bit where I said “Been there, done that, way too often.” There are incidents where I did not handle myself well, or disappointed people around me, or just flat out did something dumb when I should have known better, and every once in a while my brain likes to call up those incidents and relive them. And I get angry with myself all over again – for not knowing better, for not thinking things through, for doing something that wasn’t the right thing to do because I was trying to be someone that I’m not. And as Wil suggests, I just gotta hope that what I learned from those experiences helps make up for whatever screwup I made at the time. The advantage that Wil has over me is that on his blog, you can get all this lovely introspection and self-analysis along with a large helping of William Shatner stories.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.