Only two years ago, I promised myself that I wouldn't do a couple of things. I wouldn't buy a smartphone, I thought, because they're expensive and consume all your time. I wouldn't join Twitter because it's just full of people who really think others are interested in how well they slept, what they ate for breakfast, how cool they think Lady Gaga is, and so on. I didn't think any of these things would be important anyway to my desired career - being a primary school teacher - in fact, you can get fired as a teacher for even having a Facebook account these days. Alas, only this week has my application to get on a PGCE course been rejected. I'm not giving up on teaching altogether, but the more I think about it, the happier I am that they turned me down, because, as happy as I think I'd have been in a classroom, it wouldn't have compared to how writing makes me feel. Maybe you can only understand this if you're a writer yourself, but there's something thrilling about reading your own stuff, whether it's a blog like this, a particularly smooth phrase you've used, or rushing to the news stand at university to read your own film review in the student paper (as often I have done). It's a very selfish thrill, something self-centred, but what's wrong with that in a brief life?
I know I had something genuine to offer future generations of school children, but that's gone for now. However, I think I can make myself happy and (if I'm lucky) some other people in the world happy, by writing things that truly interest to them. And I have such wide interests that I'm bound to speak to someone out there. Among other things, I am an avid sports fan (football and tennis mostly), a well-travelled young man (and soon to be even more so), someone who follows politics and the news, a film fanatic, a lover of art and music (mostly oldies and classical), and an admirer of some of the finer things in life. The lamp on my desk which I'm seeing by now is similar to the cool green ones in the library Morgan Freemon walks around in Se7en - that sort of finer thing. I give this list as a way of introducing myself to anyone out there reading this, but I realise that's a frivolous hope: getting to really know someone is hard, maybe impossible, and even if it is possible it takes a long, long time. But in aid of eventually being a writer, I want to use this blog to comment on a range of issues (current and general) that strike me as ones that I feel I can add my unique perspective to. This is all leading somewhere - hopefully being a writer for a newspaper or magazine in the future - but if not, it will make me happy anyway.
So, despite promising myself that I wouldn't be, I am the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S (and the Samsung Note looks nice too), a new member of the Twitterati, and I've launched into the Blogosphere. Just seven years ago, where was Facebook, HD TV, 3D films, and the iPhone? Time's moving so quick it's scary, and those of us who want to need to keep up, especially if we want to be writers like I do. In another seven years, who knows where we'll be, but I'm pretty sure we'll be living even more online than we do now (unless there's a backlash and things like letter writing become cool again, which would be refreshing), but that's not such a bad thing in moderation. The Internet, as do we all, has such capacity for good.
If you've read this far (and I know it's been a bit long-winded), then maybe you'll be interested in reading some more in the future. Feel free to return to get my perspective on a few things. I look forward to us journeying together through the strange but mostly wonderful world we live in.
Best Wishes,
Mark Graham
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