One Year In: looking back at a year of writing and what may lie ahead
Today we’re taking a quick break from the usual deep dive to look back and reflect as Breakdowns&Breakthroughs hits the 1-year mark.
I started this blog without really any idea of what I was going to do with it. Starting a blog had been on my new year’s resolutions lists since I was in college, but I never followed through. For me, it wasn’t so much about wanting a blog as it was about wanting to write. Writing had always been something I enjoyed and wanted to do more of, but I was scared of putting anything out in the world. I didn’t really know what I wanted to say or if anyone wanted to hear what I had to say. So to scratch that writing itch I would journal or occasionally write a half-completed essay that would live untitled somewhere in the darkest corners of my Google Drive. I just couldn’t get over that hump where I’d write consistently enough to find whatever it was I had to say. That was until last year. Around this time then, a friend and I had a long conversation about personal projects. We had talked before about the Breakdowns & Breakthroughs framework and my desire to write, but l had kept things fairly hypothetical. I had all of these ideas and was basically a writer in theory. So not a writer. In that conversation though, something clicked. I realized that if I didn’t try that I’d regret it, and I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I didn’t have to write a novel, I just had to start writing. So out of that conversation came the challenge just to write one paragraph. Which I did, and that one paragraph became a page, and that page became the first post on this site.
Looking back, that first post is drastically different than what this blog would become. Despite not really having a super well-thought-out plan, I at least thought I had an idea of the direction it would head in. It was going to be about my personal breakdowns and breakthroughs, and those of others. There would be a focus on providing inspiration through stories, and I would somehow buck the trends of the current self-help/self-development industry. I wanted it to be more raw and honest. The goal was for people to gain inspiration and insight by reading about what I and other people have gone through. Again it was supposed to be all about this framework of working through the lows in life and how highs emerge out of them. Our breakdowns and breakthroughs, where the breakdowns wouldn’t be insta-glamorized. The core DNA of that mission is still there, I’ve just gone in a different direction with how that DNA is expressed.
Very early on I realized that my interests weren’t so localized. Personal stories are deeply fascinating but all of our stories are rooted in something larger. The human condition. That and the breakdowns and breakthroughs that we are all experiencing in the modern world. We are at an inflection point where there are massive societal, cultural, and technological changes happening in real-time. All of these changes have real impacts on our individual experiences and how we live our lives. So that’s what the goal shifted to. I wanted to cover these larger issues in the hope that people can gain insight into how these changes affect their lives. The pieces still very much have my imprint on them. It’d be impossible for them not to, but I try to use my experience as a way to add some real-world context to the issues at hand. At the end of the day, I don’t want it to just be my story. We all have our own stories that blend together to create the world we live in. That’s what matters.
That process of adaptation and evolution that the blog went through, is also how I approach each piece of writing. On the backend, each of the pieces is labeled as Voice #X (i.e. Voice #1, Voice #2, etc.), and aren’t titled until they’re posted. I may have a loose theme that I start out with, but much like the blog itself, the end product could be completely different. That’s also why each piece is labeled as “Voice”. Each one is another exercise in finding my voice and determining my perspective on something. I’ve also stolen the idea of an interlude from albums. Whenever there’s a general idea like fear or hope that I’ve been thinking about, I like to write about it as an interlude between articles. It’s all a feeling process where I get to explore all of my interests and develop my own unique voice untethered by other frameworks. I think this way of writing has really allowed me to get the most out of this project.
1 year later and that process is how I’ve gotten here. Going forward the core mission will be the same. Breakdowns&Breakthroughs is where I’ll distill what’s going on in the world and how it’s affecting the human condition, whether it’s social, cultural, or technological. Sometimes it will be from the micro-perspective and sometimes it will be macro. The goal is to write about things that affect us all and to not only give insight into what’s happening but also maybe how to navigate it. Although I offer some sort of solution in most of my pieces, it’s not meant to be prescriptive or patronizing. What I aim for is to help people reflect on how these things affect them personally, and recognize that other people are thinking about better ways to live. That personal growth will then bloom into cultural development and community. Ultimately we can’t separate people from culture, and we have to cultivate both if we’re all going to create something better.
As for what’s different moving forward, I imagine that things will continue to evolve in ways I can’t forecast, just like our lives do. With that natural evolution though, there are some things I may try to work on in this journey of finding my voice. The first is that I might try to start pushing the blog more. This is something that scares the shit out of me because I don’t really like putting myself out there like that. Right now this is just a small thing that I share with friends and family, if I make it more public then I’m opening myself up to the world. That’s the thing though, art is meant to be shared. Is it really art if it just sits in a cupboard far from where anyone can appreciate it or critique it? So in order to grow as a creative I need to open myself up to both appreciation and criticism. The other step is linked to that and is about community. As I wrote about in my very first post I don’t want to this be about influence, I want it to be about inspiration. In sharing this project more widely I hope to build a community and create more real-world tie-ins. The goal there wouldn’t be to build a community around the project, but for the project to help people build their own communities. The human condition is suffering right now, and we’re all longing for something more. We’re all looking for connection and community. That’s my driving force. I don’t care if I’m remembered for starting some huge company or accomplishing some amazing feat. I care much more about being remembered for the impact I’ve made in the lives of people. That’s what community is for. None of our breakdowns and breakthroughs happen in a silo. It’s why I started this project, and so my hope is that in the future I can expand to help make more of a difference in that area. I hope it can foster community and connection. I hope it can help people reclaim their humanity.
I have no fucking idea what the future looks like, but I didn’t a year ago either. I would never have imagined where my life is now, with this blog and outside of it. So stick with Breakdowns&Breakthroughs, and let’s see what breakthroughs lie ahead. Thank you for reading, and keep being human.