One Year, One Iris

It's been one year since I published my first post explaining what "One Iris" means.

When I first started writing, I wasn't sure how far I would be able to take it. Will college life make me too busy? What if I run out of things to write? Are my thoughts even worth writing about?

It's been 38 posts since then. Looking back at those posts (and the prior paragraph), one thing stands out to me. I ask a lot of questions. I think that writing is such a lively thing because the craft itself is indeed alive. The act of writing seems to me like breathing. One inhales life, and exhales writing, though the form of that writing is of course unique to the person. My soul as a writer seems to exhale questions I cannot answer. I would even say I often feel crushed by the magnitude of questions I conjure without resolution.

Whether this is a product of my own personality or just my stage in life, I do not know. I am a student. Does it follow then that my purpose is to seek answers? But what then should I be doing with those answers? Are they simply there to help me find a job or obtain some other possession? Should I be forming a concrete philosophy to live by? Can such a thing even exist?

I've been reading some Tolstoy lately, and a line from his diary really resonated with me. "The mind's game of chess goes on independently of life, and life of it." I think that somewhere among my incessant question asking is a desire to form a plan for every situation. Even if I don't have an answer, I want to always at least have a response or some other intelligent sounding babble to spit out. And yet the more I think about it, many of the best conversations I've had were spontaneous, and my fondest memories are often ones I did not anticipate.

One Iris itself was a product of a late night idea that had little planning or philosophy to back it up. But writing here has truly been a blessing. The final line of my first post says that this blog will be a window into one iris in this world. That mission has not changed, and I thank you for reading One Iris! Here's hoping the second year will be as fruitful as the first!