If I Build It Will They Come?

It’s more than 40 years since I was first published and almost twenty-five since I started my first blog.

I won my first writing award when Reagan was in his second term and received several other awards in the Bush senior and Clinton administrations.

That was during a different lifetime when I had dreams of becoming a sportswriter. I can’t remember the last time I shared that with anyone and am not sure if I have any of the trophies or plaques.

Got my share of hate mail and criticism and a handful of praise for the work I have done.

Been paid to produce content and had my share of moments during which I thought this was my ticket to something bigger.

Those were bookended by the moments when I asked myself why I bothered because so few cared what I pumped out.

So when Substack sends me advice on how to build a readership I ask myself what happens if I build it, will they really come.

And if so, how do I best leverage my online home of JoshuaWilner.com.

My father died eight years ago. It came after a brief stay in a hospice following a battle with Pancreatic cancer.

His death coincided with my daughter’s 14th birthday which led to the sort of confluence of life events people hope to avoid.

She turned 22 this week and I thought about I would have liked to have told Dad about what grad school she has chosen to attend in person.

Thought about telling him about how when the stitch from my surgery failed there was a point where the pool of blood looked purple to me.

Most of the day was spent in typical parent fashion in which I wondered how she got to be so old.

Stared at a picture of her as a toddler crashed out on my stomach. It was at the house I grew up in, taken while I sat in an overstuffed chair presumably facing my grandfather who was likely seated across from me.

The guy in the picture looks so young as does the toddler who is sleeping the way we all remember and hope to do so again.

She has no concerns. Her parents provide her with everything she needs and no idea that in twenty years she’ll have spent significant time agonizing over what her next steps ought to be post undergrad.

Dear old Dad will have shared his thoughts and ideas but those will include the simple truth that it is her life and he can’t tell her what choice will be best.

“It’s your life honey. I am confident you will figure it out, but there are very few absolutes.”

Johnny has been one of my companions on this journey through life for a significant part of my life.

He has kept me company through triumph and tragedy and everything that falls between.

When I take a moment to look ahead and consider what direction I choose to sail in I do so with the recognition I have lived a life.

Sometimes I shake my head and ask how I managed to do so many different things and to have had so many different experiences while still feeling like I have so much more to do.

Got internal and external scars that bear witness to the ordinary and the extraordinary moments we go through.

Been through enough that I keep my eyes open so that I recognize the times where I need to focus on not missing the moment.

But also have a list of times in which it just didn’t happen and the checklist that I use to determine if it was fear, hesitation or something else that stopped that opportunity.

Some of that has evolved over time as my perspective has changed.

Sometimes I look at that which I once regretted not doing and smile because I think I avoided a problem.

It doesn’t stop me from applying the same critical eye to some choices where I think about why I didn’t have enough sense to just walk away.

But that is how I got to be who I am and how I’ll get to be who I will become.

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
~ Ray Bradbury ~

I am lying on the floor on my back with my arms crossed doing a version of a test that helps identify if you are aging too fast.

I sit up without using my arms, move into a kneeling position and stand. I don’t consider it to have been hard but I can’t say it was easy either.

It’s not a vanity project that pushes me to do this or some of the yoga and balance movements and exercises I have been doing.

This is work to build a stronger and more able body for the second half of life.

It is driven by memories of my father in a rehab facility after the combination of chemo and cancer knocked out his legs.

It’s pushed by memories of lying on the floor bleeding out and knowing I got off of the floor because of decades of working out.

Because I had built enough muscle strength that I pulled myself up while standing in a pool of my own blood and somehow managed not to slip.

I keep pushing some friends and family to start doing some of these same exercises and activities.

I keep reminding them that we can’t rely on who we once were and what we once found to be easy.

It’s humbling to do some of these things and realize that maybe you aged more over time than you had realized.

Some ask if almost dying changed me and I laugh because in some ways the answer is absolutely no.

There are some things that are no different than they once were but there is enough that was influenced by it.

There are things I don’t care about at all and things I have begun to care very much about.

There are people I don’t care if I ever speak with again and some who I haven’t spoken with in forever that I think about talking to again.

That is all I have for you for now. Maybe it will be enough to grab some attention and inspire a few folks to subscribe and maybe it will be enough to convince others it is not worth it.

That is the funny part about this blogging thing, you never do know what will or won’t work as well as you’d like.

See you around.