4 Years

Last Saturday was the fourth birthday of On a path (note that some of On a path's archives are offline so you can't go back and relive it's history). It's not really fair to celebrate since On a path is woefully neglected but a mention is necessary. Instead of celebrating a blog's anniversary however I'd like to address where I am four years after first seriously developing a presence online.

When I started writing On a path I had recently come back to the day job world after freelancing full time for a couple years. I hated my job, hated my boss, hated every minute I spent in the office. The job was a financial necessity that I could not go without no matter how much I wanted to. I spent a lot of time in the job just watching the clock tick because I could easily do what was considered a full day of work in less than half the time. Finding increasingly amusing ways to pass the time had become difficult and I was spending more and more time seeking out diversions on the internet. That's how I discovered blogging.

4 years later I'm still trying to figure out how to only, or even mostly, do good work that I care about and that I feel is valuable. I have a part time day job and a gaping hole where the rest of my income should be. There are days where I wonder to myself how other people do it. How they go to work everyday to a job that probably doesn't fulfill them or make them happy. How does that act not make them sad everyday? How do they not struggle with not doing work that is meaningful and valuable to them. How do they cope with not being able to say "this is something I created at is beautiful/useful/helpful/artistic/wonderful/engaging." The answer to all these questions is, apparently, they just do. They just go to work, they just do their job and they go home. They don't seem to think about it all much beyond that. Some days I wish very much that I could shut my brain off and just do my job and not think about it much and go home. I wish I could feel that the work I do is valuable and important. And while it is valuable work to some people (particularly the end protect) it's just not to me. I try very hard to do a good job at my work because I have respect for the people that give me a paycheck and I have a strong work ethic but building a better widget doesn't inspire me and it's not important to me.

A few days ago I was going through my notebook and found a passage from around this time last year.

All the ugliness in the world is unchecked by me. If you consider and concede that we each have a role in fighting ugliness then I have to ask myself it I'm living up to my role. Am I fulfilling it? At this point the answer is unequivocally no. At this point I'm not even living.

Very melodramatic I know but it was heartfelt and it was in my own notebook so cut me some slack. I want to do good, interesting work. I want to create beauty and art and help people or inspire people or even just make people say "hmm that's interesting" or even "I really hate that but I'm glad I saw it." It's taken me all the years since college to put those wants into more concrete plans and hopes. I've tried many things, held a few jobs I hated, failed at a few endeavors and I'm still not on a clear path. At the moment the path I'm on has a lot of curves and trees and I can't see very far ahead but the scenery is beautiful and when I let myself stop worrying I'm having a very good time. Here a few projects that are making my path a lot of fun.

Michelle Jones Photography I never thought I'd love anything as much as I love writing but I kind of do. Writing will always be my first love but I really do love photography passionately. I study the work of other photographers, mercilessly critique my own work, read and learn about styles, techniques, equipment, take classes and work every day to become better tomorrow than I am today. I am trying very hard to become a professional, working photographer.

Exposure is a blog about photography that I write. God bless the internet for letting me write about something I'm passionate about.

Consuming Indy When B and I moved to Indianapolis nearly 3 years ago the city was completely new to us. Neither of us had friends or relatives here and we'd only visited a couple times. We were flying blind looking for new places that suited our tastes. Everywhere we've lived we've tried very hard to support local, independent businesses. At the top of the "must support local" list for us are restaurants. A city's food scene is very closely tied to the city's culture and feel.

So I was very pleased when, shortly after we got here, I found Emily & Christopher's Restaurant reviews. Though their taste isn't identical to ours it was definitely similar enough to help us get our feet wet in the dining scene here. While Emily and Christopher's list was very helpful for finding food I wished there was something similar for cool shops and theaters and things to do. While there were a few on and offline options for finding shops and theaters and exhibits, etc there wasn't one central go to place for cool ways to spend your time and money in Indianapolis.

So I created Consuming Indy to be that place.

Writing I'm still writing, more now than anytime over the past couple years. I still love it but still don't have much talent. I know that my writing will probably only live in my notebooks and my computer and while I do wish it could be a bit more than that I'm pretty much ok with it. For a while, when I was writing frequently at generic apathy I was getting a lot of great feedback about my work and it fed me. It made me feel bold and better than I was. I don't publish as much there now but I hope to change that this summer. Not because I'm desperate for that feedback again but because I'm not anymore and because maybe somebody will enjoy Therapy Journal (1, 2, 3 and more coming soon) or Bardstown and Douglass or some of the new stuf I'm writing as much as I enjoyed The Person who Lives (or Our Relationship Demands a Spreadsheet) and Out of all the men. Maybe not but that's ok. Like Hemingway said it's just about the work. If your writing is stalled or bad just write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you can and then go on.

I'm Michelle Jones and I like to tell stories and make photographs.