It Was 20 Years Ago Today..... 

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been Blogging now for TWENTY years! Back then I was essentially badgered by my friends to ‘join them’ in the Blogosphere and, naturally, produce my own content. My early Blog was, I freely admit, not very good. I didn’t really know what I was doing (I’m STILL learning bits) and I had no real idea what I wanted to say. It took a few years for things to settle down into today’s ‘style’ and, no doubt, things will continue to slowly evolve – probably in ways I can’t see right now. 

I guess that the only dominant ‘theme’ to this Blog is that it reasonably closely reflects who I am and what’s going on in my tangled mind. In some ways it's a pretty good representation of me and my personality – which is why it is and will continue to be an evolving, living ‘document’. I remember a quote in one of Ann Rice’s vampire books (I can’t remember exactly which one) where Lestat was musing on immortality. He said something along the line of “if you live a very long time, you become more of who you really are”. I think that’s a good way to look at Seeking a Little Truth (SaLT) – over the last 20 years it has become more of who I am – kind of like how a comfy chair looks after a person has been sitting in it that long: slightly baggy, slightly the worse for wear, but comfy. 

Not that I want (or think of) my Blog as a place of comfort. I’ve long thought that my ‘mission’ was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. This is not a ‘safe space’ and I imagine that at least some of my readers – even my regular readers (and you lurkers out there) have been disturbed, annoyed, surprised (not in a good way) and maybe even shocked at some of the things I’ve posted here. I am and always have been an opinionated person. In fact, I’m notorious for it. I LIKE having opinions and I like using them to good effect. I’m not *quite* as blatant as I used to be in my youth, but I DO still have my moments! 

You’ve probably noticed that SaLT has become a bit more political of late. My ‘Serious Sunday’ posts in particular have been leading me to comment more on the issues of the day. Living through whatever the hell this is we’re going through right now kind of does that. These posts will definitely be continuing so you might want to brace yourself. I can imagine that some future posts – the way things seem to be 'progressing’ both here & abroad – might be rather harsh, forthright... We’ll see. 

Speaking of future posts... I have been musing for a while now on what I could do – apart from this post – to ‘celebrate’ my 20th year. Nothing amazing has sprung to mind. Going forward you’ll be seeing much of the same – which, no doubt, will please many of you. I’ll be dropping in the odd, and sometimes VERY odd, surprise post as things ping my radar but that’s going to be pretty random (remember I have a butterfly mind). 

Book review-wise, I’ll finally be starting a set of 20th century history books (1914-1983) soon and reviews for those should begin appearing before the end of the year. I’m ‘planning’ to start a larger set of books with a common theme – or at least a common thread – probably next Spring which should be fun. One other thing I’ll be doing more of is clumping books together to address my perennial “what shall I read next” conundrum. This will involve ‘deep-dives’ of at least 3 books on a certain subject, period, event or person in quick succession. I’ve certainly enjoyed this in the past. Another thing will be ‘coupling’ where I’ll be reading a pair of books with some kind of connection. Lastly, another idea popped into my head recently – sandwiching. Here I’ll be reading 3 books – either a fiction sandwiched between 2 non-fiction or the other way around which have a common connection. I already have several stacked to go. 

As of today, I have no plans to go anywhere or to stop Blogging any time soon. I enjoy it too much and it’s become a significant part of my life. I have no idea if I’ll still be here (in all senses of the word) in another 20 years, but we’ll see how it goes year by year. Here’s to an interesting future and thanks to all of you out there who have made the last 20 years so interesting and so fun. LONG may it continue.