To New Beginnings...
An introductory post that acts as an About page, of sorts.
Hi!
Every couple of years or so, I get a hankering to do or try something new, usually thinking that some new piece of software or technology or gizmo or contraption will somehow get me back to writing like I used to back in the ol’ LiveJournal days (and if that ages me, then that’s honestly just because I’m old).
I’d like to mostly blame the rise of social media, but I do have to take some of the blame. For over 20 years (told you I’m old), I’ve started or participated in countless blogs/sites/podcasts (seven-to-nine-or-so) that I’ve either backed away from (waning interest, depression) or let fizzle out entirely (upkeep, maintenance, cost, ease of use, depression), but I always come back to wanting to create something, write something, or share something, and for whatever reason, starting new always seems like the best way to achieve that goal.
And so here I am/we are!
A few things about me and this site/newsletter:
I like movies and music in equal parts. I imagine that this is mostly what I’ll be writing about, but I guess we’ll find out together!
I like foods of all kinds but have no desire to learn how to cook. Just ask my wife! (No, please don’t do that.) I would like to keep myself open to the idea that I might want to share food-related thoughts. I don’t imagine that food will crop up with much regularity, but I guess we’ll find out together about this as well.
Why Better Endings? It came to me as an idea for a movie-focused site after seeing Civil War (2024) with my wife and us discussing it afterward. This was like the second or third movie in a row that we saw where I just kept spouting out better ways that the film could’ve ended, so I thought that might be fun to write about. But then I considered that that’s really sorta niche, and also kind of a bummer way to approach writing about something. I’m not going to say that I won’t do that, but for that to be the whole shtick? Bah!
With that idea put out to pasture, I kept coming back to the name. I suppose that I like the idea of it (better endings) in the sense that this could be the last iteration of whatever it was I was always trying to do; this won’t be the best version of whatever that might’ve been (I think it’s healthier for me mentally to not strive for this to be the best version of anything), but that this will be a better version of those things, that it ends here, that this is going to have a better ending than what came before.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s kind of a stupid way to look at it, but it’s also too late now! I’ve said too much, and I’ve already paid for the domain (better-endings.com), so I have to at least commit to trying.
And that’s my promise to you! Here and now, I vow to try to write something. About anything. At least once a week.
Please feel no obligation to subscribe, but cool if you do. And if you do and end up unsubscribing, then that’s cool too! This is mostly for me to humor myself, and to at least try to do the damn thing.
Here’s to new beginnings, and to the dream of better endings.