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Edit Myself

I’ve been blogging every day for almost one year now and I think it might be a highly valuable exercise to go back and edit myself. What if on January 1, 2018 I went and read my January 1, 2017 entry and then either edited myself in one of two ways:

1) Say it more succinctly. I’m thinking I should try to summarize my post into a pearl of wisdom—a quotable quote that packs a powerful punch.

2) Update my thinking. It might be fun to see how my current views differ from my previous views and edit myself accordingly. Conversely, I may find on some topics I still feel much the same and perhaps even more passionately so. I could elaborate on my earlier thoughts. Undoubtedly, I’m sure a revisit would result in better thinking and better writing. I could also practice synthesizing it into one solid kernel of wisdom.

As I’m writing this I now see three distinct categories emerging for 2018:

Edit
Update
Elaborate

Edit will be for making previous posts short, sweet, and succinct. Essentially, my old posts will be turned into quotable quotes that pack a powerful punch.

Update will be for posts where I need to explain how my old views are no longer the same as my views of today.

Elaborate will be for posts where I want to expound upon my earlier thoughts.

And maybe I will just use last year's daily posts to stimulate this year's daily thoughts.

I can see now that I should have titled my post today:

Edit Update Elaborate

Instead of Edit Myself. Alas, it isn’t 2018 so next year on Dec. 25th, I will improve this post. ;)

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