so.

Lets call this hump day in the world of writing for a blog. well. At least my blog world.

Yup. This post means I am officially on Wednesday in my blog world.

This is my 600th post, article, diatribe and/or nonsensical scribbling.

500 to 600 were the most painful and most difficult century of writing yet. Just like a Wednesday in a workweek it just seemed to linger but now that it is over I only see a good run toward the weekend.

It was painful in that in taking a job my writing time got all discombobulated (a great excuse to type that word).

And it was that same job where my laptop and thumb drives were stolen and a lot of writing that was waiting in the wings was lost and I needed to start from scratch.

And it was during this time I learned it is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate.

Well. Or at least I cannot recreate.

Or maybe better said … my creation process has nothing to do with going back in time and rebuilding a thought … I create because I care about something.  Recreating that feeling is next to impossible.  I write in the moment and with a thought or I don’t write.

And it was slightly painful because life got in the way a little too much … I had just as many writing thoughts (I have just as many random slips of paper with a brief thought scribbled on them) but I didn’t have as many writing times to expound on the thought (and that is slightly frustrating).

But I think that is what Life hump days are all about.  Getting there and being able to look forward and gain momentum.

Maybe I needed 501 to 599 to remind myself I like writing.  I like thinking.  And I like sharing what I am thinking. And I need to find the time to build out these thoughts.

I do know I need to find the time to go deeper with some of the thoughts I have had. It isn’t enough to write about today’s economy in 5 paragraphs.  It needs 5 pages.

Anyway.

As I reach another writing milestone I (of course) started thinking about how to share a deeper thought.  Everyone may chuckle over this but the number 600 may be the most meaningless number in the world. It is absolutely not a milestone for anything. So I had to be creative but in doing so I actually was able to tap into something I truly value (history & historical perspective) as well as tap into something that conceptually I like but practically I sometimes find people put too much effort & energy behind (a deeper meaning to yin & yang).

600? Let’s visit 600 BC.

Apparently the Tao Te Ching, roughly translated as The Book of the Way and its Virtue, was written around 600 BCE by Taoist sage Laozi (or Lao Tzu, “Old Master”), while the book is central in Chinese religion, not only for Taoism but Chinese Buddhism, it has been a source of inspiration for books, philosophical babbling and business acumen (which is a little scary conceptually).  I knew it had hit some fairly absurd heights when “the Tao of Pooh” (which admittedly is a creative little book) was published.

Regardless.

Lao Tzu (the author) has become a quote machine. How awesome is that? 600 BC and he is still being quoted. I can only hope that 2600 years from now someone is quoting me (I won’t hold my breath … but you gotta have some dreams).

But as I write about 600 (and use 600 BC as my platform for a thought here) I could do worse than spotlighting Lao Tzu as a move toward writing the next 400 articles & posts.

Good ole Laozi (also Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tzu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Lao Zi, Laocius among a number of other variations … which, by the way, is also inspirational in that maybe some day if I keep writing there will be derivatives of my own name beyond Brewski, Brucifer, Bru – or Brew) was a philosopher of ancient China and is the central figure in Taoism.

And Laozi literally means “Old Master.” Laozi is revered as a deity in most religious forms of Taoism. Taishang Laojun is a title for Laozi in the Taoist religion, which refers to him as “One of the Three Pure Ones.”

Now.

For inspiration at 600 that is not bad.  It certainly gives us all something to aim for.

An objective.

A spot on the horizon to keep truckin’ toward (although I don’t believe Lao would have said truckin’).

So here is how I celebrate 600 posts.

Taoism and Lao Tzu.

Making philosophical & practical impact.

I am fairly sure I could have chosen a worse objective.

Because it is certainly a better objective than suggesting I wanted to make my blog world-renowned.

Why? (even though that objective may appear more attainable).

Well. Think about it.

First.

Perspective.

In 1922 there were 600 radio stations in the USA.

There are now about 13,500 give or take several dozen.

And there are about 44,000 radio stations worldwide.

Second.

Current blog reality.

600 blogs? Shit.  I don’t know when there were 600. It sure ain’t now.

All I know is the last number I saw was that there are over 112.8 million English based blogs (does not include all the 72.82 million Chinese blogs).

Given those numbers? I will take my odds of achieving my Lao Tzu objective more so than an objective of making my blog world renowned.

Because I also tend to believe Lao never intended to be “an architect of fate” (to quote someone else instead of Lao). At some point he probably decided that small actions can make a bigger impact so he focused on doing small actions well.

My blog is a small action. And as long as I continue to stand up for what I believe and write about it I have to believe everyone is in some small way an architect of Life. Lao started small. What the heck. Don’t we all?

That said.

I better get started on 601+.

Written by Bruce