by Travis Hellstrom

I began writing online in 2005 using blogger.

It was a wonderful experience and made a big impact on my life.

Writing online helped me explore my thoughts and experiences in a way I hadn't before. It also taught me that I enjoyed creating things online and sharing them with people. That is still true today.

Advance Humanity

I named my first blog Advance Humanity because, as I wrote in an article in 2005, it helped "define my principles, my values and in someway it helps define me." It's fun and admittedly a little embarrassing to look back at those articles from 8 years ago and remember where I was when I was writing them.

At the time I was in college trying to wrap my mind around my future. Medical school loomed ahead and a perfectly made path stretched out before me. Even though I was president of the pre-med honors society at the time and had done well enough on the entrance exams to be accepted into medical school, it was a path I chose not to take. I chose Peace Corps and, in some ways Advance Humanity, instead.

Growing

I wrote something in that entry that still strikes a chord with me,

"Stephen King used to have a desk in the center of his study so that he could go in and write for hours at a time. The huge problem with that, which he wrote about in his book On Writing, is that he was using life as a support system for writing. It’s the other way around, he said. Writing is a support system for life. Life is the goal, the adventure and the journey. Medical school isn’t, writing, music, none of that stuff is. I am living to live, to experience life fully in my own way, to grow in my own wisdom, and to learn to love better."

I like that.

I am still growing and I still enjoy writing.

I look forward to sharing that for a long time to come.

Incidentally, Advance Humanity is still growing as well.

I'll write more about that next time.