Did you know that in Australia, you don’t have to legally name your baby for 60 days? Actually, the rule down under is that government agencies must accept name registrations no matter how late they are, so theoretically you could wait to name your child for months if you wanted to. They’re much less strict than we are in America: most hospitals in the US won’t let you leave until you’ve given the baby a name. So if you’re reading this right now, and you happen to be both pregnant and indecisive…you’re welcome.
I mention this because, a whopping seven months after starting this project, I’ve decided to name the blog. I did this mostly because the more I thought about it, the more “The Personal Blog of Dominick Baruffi” sounded like the blogosphere equivalent of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” which carries with it all the implications of the most boring thing ever. So I’ve been kicking the tires for a while on what I’d want to call this thing, with most of my ideas being embarrassingly lame. In the end (as you may have already guessed), I decided to go with “On The Road.”
The name borrows from one of my favorite books, Jack Kerouac’s seminal work of the same name. Kerouac’s book is wild and untidy; it reads like he wrote the thing while hooked up to an IV of Red Bull. Sometimes it's irreverent, sometimes it's introspective, sometimes it's just plain foolish. But isn't this our lives as well? Life is a journey, and along the way we experience all manner of people, places, doubts, fears, joys and beauty. We are lonesome travelers hitchhiking along the road of life, and like Kerouac, our ultimate goal is a city, a shining city filled with peace and happiness, a place filled with the ones we love and the One we love, a place where all will finally be made well. The road is not always kind to us. But still we journey on, sometimes slower than others but never losing sight of our final destination. This is our story, and I love how the road metaphor so perfectly parallels our experience.
So allow me to reintroduce you to the blog. It's pretty much the same thing but with a new header image at the top. Here's to many semi-interesting posts between now and whenever it comes time for the journey to end. I hope you decide to tag along.
I’ll admit, I used to resent people who had blogs. It just seemed sort of conceited to me, you know? Like a writer’s version of Ron Burgundy: “Everyone! Come see how important I am!” At yet here I am today, posting to a blog with my name on it. I’m practically swimming in a pool of my own irony right now.
Having said that, why am I doing this? And why should you care about any of this, anyway? Fair questions, both of them. As a former blog skeptic, I'd like to try and answer them for you.
Perhaps my reasons for writing can best be summed up in this. I remember having a conversation some years ago with my friend Josiah, who is a gifted songwriter. We were talking about worrying about what people think of us, and at one point I asked him how the pressure to impress others affected his songwriting. “I mean, doesn’t that factor into why you write?” I asked. He sat thoughtfully for a moment, then replied, “...I write because it’s who I am.” I never forgot that. There are lots of reasons I love to write, but more than anything, like Josiah, I write because I am compelled. It’s something I feel in my bones, something that makes me come alive when I enter into the process. When I write, I feel like myself. It helps me sort out my thoughts and make sense of the confusion often happening around me. Simply put, it just feels like home to me.
As for the second question, I believe what I write is worth reading for one reason only: because I am human. I am like you. I hurt. I struggle. I have my good days and my bad days. And while the details of my life may vary from yours, the content remains relevant because my story is your story. We may be different, but as you will see we are not so different as you might think. And my hope is that the words I write here will encourage you and point to truth and beauty and not to self-indulgence or narcissism or vanity. The goal here, as with all good things, is love. At least, that's what I'm gunning for.
So there you have it. I don't know if I'm any less of a pretentious blogger now that I've explained myself, but that's okay. I'm not as bothered by it as I used to be. This is who I am, and hopefully these words won't simply be adding to all the meaningless babble taking up space on the internet.
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