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     Today I'm going to talk a little bit about dreams. They go on when I close my eyes. Every second of the night I live another life. Sike, no, not that kinda dreams. Ambitions.
     It's starting to come home to me how much of what we want in life comes down to just taking it. This is such a simple idea, but I didn't grasp it, and it doesn't seem like a lot of other people do either. I've said more times than I can count "I'd like to do ____." or "I should ____." And every day I don't do it. Why? Well that's sort of what I'm getting at. Just do it.
     You can fill a library with reasons not to do something. Sadly, a lot of it is other people. You'll never run short of people asking why you want to do something, or telling you it's a stupid idea. My least favorite is smug condescension. "Suuuure, that's a nice dream." If someone's ever told you it's irresponsible or silly to try something you've always wanted to do, I'll make this as explicit as I can: Fuck those people. Do it.
     It's weird, but when I look back at my own life, I can find many examples of me doing exactly this. When I was in middle school I wanted to run a five minute mile. I can still remember the exact moment I decided to just run faster and keep doing it until I was finished. That's literally all there was to it. I didn't run a five minute mile that day, but every mile I ran, I ran as fast as I could, and before long it was done. Why was I running eight minute miles just a few weeks earlier? If you had asked me if I was running as fast as I could, I would have told you yes. If you had asked me if I could shave three minutes off my time I would have told you no. But I did. And that means I was wrong. There's really no more depth to it than that.
     I wanted tattoos, had wanted them as long as I could remember. I could recite a dozen reasons I was told not to get tattoos, or specific kinds of tattoos. I used to talk for hours about what tattoos I could or should get. I used to debate back and forth about whether I'd like this one or that. Years this went on. And one day somebody told me to "keep dreaming", and the next day I had one. Simple as that. I used to want a Watchmen tattoo, and I couldn't decide what image I wanted to use. There were too many. One day my friend Erik said "Just get a Watchmen sleeve."

     Nothing to it. And that's one of the great things about this. Through getting that sleeve, I met my friend Barnaby (he's the artist who did it). My life is much richer for having him in it, and that led to me getting all the rest of my tattoos. You never know what good things are going to happen if you just try things. Like Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
     I have gone and am going through some significant life changes now, and this is a lesson I'm learning. It's really reshaping me for the better and that's why I'm sharing it. I don't know how many years I've said I should learn guitar, but only now am I picking it up and playing it. I've said I should exercise. So I got out of the house and did it. And this is actually a meta-post, because keeping a blog is one of those things I've said I should do for I don't know how long.
     I don't know what this is that keeps me from doing things I want to do, but if I could impart one piece of advice to someone, I could do a lot worse than "Just try it." Even the how isn't so mysterious.

"One day at a time, I suppose."