I started this site as a place to put my thoughts out in a complete and tangible way. As I am writing this, I find myself at a challenging turning point in my life. In the current time, I oft describe myself as professionally lost; whether that be because I am in search of a new profession, or because I’m sauntering through life with no map is up for debate, likely both- although that’s not to say I’m not enjoying it. Before the pandemic, I was in the midst of building a career as a professional audio technician. Increasingly finding myself in roles of leadership and responsibility, I was quickly making my way to my goals of the biggest shows around. I felt a great devotion to craft; solving complex problems on the fly whilst delivering people great entertainment through high-quality audio gave me incredible satisfaction and a great sense of purpose.
When the pandemic hit, it all went away as if it had never happened. The idea of a quick few weeks of shutdown turned into months, and the hope of return within the year quickly faded. I quickly recognised reality and began my search for an adventure- something to pass the time away from normal, and something that would give me the experience of a lifetime. Soon enough I found myself in southern Montana on a Canadian grain harvesting crew. The experience was a paradox of incredible, and terrible. An unforgettable time and journey that gave me great new insights and a wealth of new skills. I saw parts of the continent I had never seen before, at a time when travel for others was extremely limited. I learned how to live and work with the same people day in and day out despite our immense differences. And I was able to gain a great deal of mechanical know-how that comes from maintain a fleet of 7 combine harvesters in the peak of season. That was the good, the bad came parallel in many ways. It starts with an unrelenting boss who, as an Albertan would say, was ‘all hat and no cattle’, the epitome of small man syndrome, and an all-round terrible person unable to be pleased. His pleasantries combined with some rather terrible characters in the crew, long working hours for weeks on end, and some of the worst legal pay you can find, made for an absolute mental challenge that no doubt will shape my views for a long time to come.
Working out west and spending sometimes over 90 hours a week monotonously managing my machine as it threshed its way across the plains, gave me a seemingly endless amount of time to do a great deal of introspection. I arrived at a plethora of realisations of myself: my past, my modes of operation, and my future; and also the world around me: power structures, politics, economics, and agriculture to name a few; but there was one failure- I failed to record any of this great new-found cognizance. While the revelations and great thoughts I had remain with me, I left something great, which was the ability to develop them into full and complete thoughts.
To write is to develop a thought. Even if the thought is not one that is fully fleshed-out, it develops as you labour to translate it into an understandable text worthy of someone else’s attention (I guess you’ll decide that part). Beyond development, writing can also be seen as a liberation. A thought is liberated from the mind parallel to the mind being liberated from the thought. The thought upon liberation, is allowed to be seen in the world and engaged upon by others; after a considerable amount of editing of course (I can’t have anyone reading my complete garbage). Once a mind has been liberated from the thought, it is now free to engage more fully in the formation of other thoughts without the burden of servicing and maintaining ones that have already been dispatched.
Published, a writing can be seen as a position in time, a record, and an explanation of a point of view; something to be referred to by both reader and writer alike. Without a doubt, the ability to return to my full thoughts as reference for discussion will be immensely helpful. I wish not to cast my thoughts here in concrete, but in a material of both malleability and consistency, one of plasticity if you will; open to change and challenge, but also subject to a certain bit of principle or rigidity. Even once successfully confronted it should be able to stand as recognizable in principle and able to conform to an alternative without a loss of vision or shape. I will not say or commit that I will forever and always stand by what I say, although I hope that to be the case; not in a wish to remain anchored in my young thoughts, but in the opposite desire that my thoughts, ideas, and principles as they stand today conform to the ones I form as I live. Perhaps an older, wiser form of myself will recognise its young self as one of a certain wisdom. Alas, I’m not going be the one to take that bet, as it’s been proven as a poor one thus far.
I follow the view that the ability to write is a muscle and being so, it is requiring of exercise to maintain and improve its strength. A strong writer in my opinion, is one that is able to capture the majority of their thought in a piece in such a way that it may be understood from near any point of view. Ambiguity can lead to misinterpretation, which is directly counter-productive to any idea you may be attempting to further. I am not one to exercise for the sake of doing so, but give me a tangible reason to do so (i.e. hike to the top of a mountain) and I will be wont to do so. This site isn’t so much as a track to run around, but a hike to adventure on. I won’t be writing for the sake of writing, but to get to a destination of good, insightful thought. The journey up the trail will no doubt be difficult, but the result will be worthwhile. When I get back down, I’ll be in better shape, and I’ll also have some great pictures to share here.
Here’s to this new collection of my thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Perhaps it will lead to some good things down the road. If anything, I just want to broaden mine and others’ bubbles of thought as we face the problems of today and the new ones of tomorrow. There are many mountains to climb, so I best get at them.
Adam Mills
(August 2021)