While this year will be filled with far more signifiant numbers, twenty-two years of a personal blog is a pretty remarkable feat, especially when one considers the average age of a blog these days (at last check, and this data is sketchy at best, it was about 2.4 years). That makes ALANILAGAN.com an absolute dinosaur, not entirely unlike its namesake (speeding along to 50 with no respite in sight).
In all that time, and while the rest of the world discovered social media and technology expanded at terrifying rates, I’ve kept this as a personal diary that has remained largely unchanged as far as basic content and format goes. It was always intended to be clean and simple (though in its planning stages I went broke for baroque – requesting sound and animation and even preliminary discussions on how to incorporate fragrance into the equation, which I accepted a compromise with scented promotional mailings) – and upon hearing the opinions of others, and realizing what blog formats I myself enjoyed, I’ve intentionally kept it relatively clean and spare. Sparing the bells and whistles has allowed me to focus on the substance, though I do my best to dress it up whenever and however possible.
The arc of over two decades allows for assessment of patterns and habits, and the perspective of that time gives one a certain bit of wisdom, not all of it welcome or wanted. It’s hard to face your own failings, and I’ve been staring at myself through the eyes of unmitigated self-expression for so long that I am very much tired of it sometimes. What keeps me going is seeing those infrequent but precious moments of growth and evolution, even if seeing them reveals some embarrassing behavior and opinions of my past. Were it not for so many mistakes, there would be far less learning.
So here’s to the next year of missteps and atrocities, and putting them on display for all the world to ignore – and here’s to the last twenty-two:
