What are we doing here?

The past few days I have thought of little else besides the question that I imagine plagues everyone trying to do something new: how do I start? Where does one begin when trying to answer all of life's existential questions armed with nothing more than a keyboard and a blogging platform? I found the answer this morning: it doesn't matter as long as it's honest. I hate rules, but there is one I know I have to follow here and that is sticking to the hard cold truth - which means for all intents and purposes, this is nothing more than an extension of my childhood journal that listed all the life lessons I started gathering in middle school with the naïve hope of someday having all the answers. Fun fact: no one has all the answers, because they don't exist. I didn't know that at age 13, but at 29 it's the only answer I can rely on so I'm holding onto it. I am perfectly fine admitting I know nothing, because that allows me to learn everything - unfortunately, that admission doesn't guarantee that I'll be able to adhere to my one rule of sticking to the truth.

Why not? Because, I am plagued by a worse malady than addiction... people pleasing. Yep, it hurts to say it because I do not enjoy feeling like my actions are out of my control, but it's an undeniable fact of my existence that I act in a way that will cause the least discontent for everyone around me. HORRIFYING. Luckily, I have this beautiful spot now to truly give 0 fucks (thank you Mark Manson) about what anyone thinks because I'm writing this with the assumption that it's for my eyes only. Who cares what I think? No one, or at least that's what I'm telling myself, because otherwise I would have been stuck in the limbo asking "where to start?" for the rest of my life. This beautiful freedom means I can do what I do best: pour my thoughts out with no filter, grammar be damned. I'm writing this because I need to - it's been my reason for living for as long as I can remember thinking I needed a reason to live. Every bold thing I've done has been backed up with the (questionable) logic of "worst case it's good content for my future best-seller" and the time has finally come to get that content out of my head and into one single place on this beautiful platform. My magical SQL skills are required for the moment, but I cannot wait to get started on answering the questions that have plagued philosophers since the beginning of time: why do we exist? What are we doing here? and my personal favorite: WHAT'S THE POINT!?

...there has to be one, and while I do not yet know what it is, I plan on documenting everything I've done up until now to try and figure it out.

xoxo, Gossip Girl (couldn't help myself)