.litho File

I have always had a problem with putting myself out there. Online, something holds me back from putting my authentic self on display. Fear of rejection, maybe. Or maybe the fear of staking my claim in an area I don’t actually care for. Who do I want to be in the eyes of the world? A geologist? A researcher? A writer? A YouTuber? A cottager? Do I want to be seen as serious? Sarcastic? Tasteful? Insightful? I’m reminded of Sylvia Plath’s fig trees. Every choice about who I want to be seems so permanent. The more I’ve ruminated about this over the years the more I’ve realized these decisions are clearly not up to me. The fact of the matter is, I want to share with the world. Now, the world doesn’t have to like it. The world can see me as a worth little value if it wants. Sure. Does that change what I want? Not at all. So there is no real reason to be shy and hide away, keeping my life to myself as if I’m helping the outside world somehow. I want to share, so I will.

This is largely what this blog is about, stuff that I’ve thought of or made that I want to put online. I don’t want to choose what path I go down. Instead of fig trees, I want to think of life as something more… geosciencey. How about seeing myself as a raft floating down a braided river: I’m letting it take me where it feels like I should be, and this is my opportunity to do so.

I have always thought of having some sort of outlet, whether it be a blog, a webcomic, or a YouTube channel. However, I was recently reading some of Caden Howlett’s Life & Space and I was inspired to finally make a claim of sorts and start this blog. Caden is a rare geology grad student-YouTuber who I’ve been following for 3 or so years at this point — he’s been a great help for a new geology grad student like myself. And he just put out a neat book, Life & Space, which is essentially a casually-written collection of thoughts about everything from psychology to astrophysics. I’ve only finished Part One, but I felt inspired by his casual, journal-like format and was itching to do something myself. Here are a few things I admire about Caden:

1. This guy reads. Really made me want to step up my book game.
2. He puts a lot out there into the world. Videos, posts, now a book. He’s not afraid to look foolish to share something (not that he ever does, but it’s easy to think you are when sharing something).
3. Dude is steezy with the kendama.

He also talks about the value of sharing your work briefly here with respect to research. I think this applies more broadly, though. Also related is Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, although more focused on creatives. But we science-types are creative too, no? We are pouring our soul into something, after all. And I suppose if you make enough scientific figures you’ll become an artist, too. Anyway, Show Your Work gave me some much-needed advice about overcoming online stage fright and the value of contributing something to the world.

So here I am. Time to test out some channels in my braided river and contribute something. Some channels might be abandoned after time, sure, but at least I’ll leave some sweet stratigraphy behind.