What's It All About, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE]?

December is an excellent time for retrospective blog posts. It must be, since so many bloggers do "Best Of" and "Looking Back" posts in December. So who am I to swim against the tide?

Actually, looking back through the year's posts can be an informative process for any blogger. And this seems like an excellent place to insert (again!) one of my favorite quotes, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci:

Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

Well, I found this exercise a great way to actually find harmony and proportion but it's still a great quote.

In a moment of desperately trying to think of a posting topic, I probably would have gotten around to a retrospective post sometime this month anyway, but Joanna Young got me thinking about the whole thing a little early, and a little less desperately, by announcing her group writing project, "Essential Lines From 2009" (and I just realized her title rhymes; how cool is that?).

Before you say to yourself, "P-shaw," and dismiss the entire thing, I want to stress how totally valuable this exercise was for me. And doing it yourself could be similarly valuable for you.

Why? Because looking over a year of your own posts gives you a great sense of perspective. Remember the Emerson quote I just quoted (again!) yesterday?

Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Looking over a year of my own posts reminded me why I blog and prompted me back to a path I had somewhat strayed from. (And yes, that path allows me to write incredibly awkward sentences like that last one, without going back to judge and fix it.)

Now, you might be totally confused if you remember the blog you're reading right now is totally new. But you must also remember it is pre-populated with posts from where I was previously blogging.

So anyway, in Joanna's exercise we're supposed to select our "essential" post for 2009. You know, the one that defines our blog, us, and the entire universe. It is also supposed to have a few catchy lines in it so Joanna can include them in a summary post of the participants' essential posts.

At first I thought I'd use my personal essay, "Do Not Go Gentle." It says much about what went on in my life over the last year or so, and it says a lot about me as a person. But after thinking a bit, it doesn't really define my blog.

That took me back to a post I view as a turning point in my life as a blogger, "Removing the Stick From Up My Ass." Aside from the fact this post brought in a disturbing amount of search engine traffic from people searching for the keywords "stick up my ass," this post gave birth to a style of blogging I continually try to revisit. It was where I realized the power of blogging in a transparent style.

That post became the first in an inadvertent series of 10 posts modeling that transparent style and really defining who I want to be as a blogger.

Here is the entire series, in case you are feeling exceptionally curious or stalkerly:

1. Removing the Stick From Up My Ass
2. Blogging So It Doesn't Suck
3. Beautiful Statues, Clever Horses, and Letting the Crap Fly
4. My Point, And I Do Have One Ellen
5. The Nagging Little Critic and The Cherokee Wolf Legend
6. It's Messy When You Should All Over Yourself
7. Rampant Creativity and Capitalistic Tinkering Patterns
8. Stream of Consciousness Shamrocks
9. God, What Could I Actually Call This Post?
10. Three Ways to Make Your Inner Critic Neurotic

But for Joanna's exercise, I had to pick one post. So I have chosen the third in this series, "Beautiful Statues, Clever Horses, and Letting the Crap Fly." I chose it largely for these two quotes, which summarize a theme within the series:

There are so many subtle ways we can censor and censure ourselves. We don't need to be afraid to let the occasional "crap" fly when it needs to.

It also contains this trinket of wisdom:

If you just do what other people want you to do, you might end up as glue or working with puppets.

If you've ever wondered just what the Pygmalion Effect was, go read this post right now! Or if not, why don't you just go read it anyway? If nothing else you'll learn the wisdom behind my glue and puppets quote.

So thank you, Joanna. This is a powerful exercise and just what I needed right now.

Gee, maybe there really is such a thing as serendipity.

Image: Dendroica cerulea