Once again, a new start.
To be honest, that image up there (and others in this entry) wasn’t really what inspired me to write this. It was a rando post on Linkedin from the many writing companies I “follow” but don’t actively engage (sigh). Whatever the case, it does encapsulate how I felt when I decided to repurpose my old college writing. I needed to put some sort of content out there to substantiate my claim as an “aspiring content creator.” Little did I know how insubstantial it really was. No amount of Grammarly.com or creative rearranging prevented me from turning my frown upside-down.
While the content was, to put it mildly, shit, the subject matter was still relevant, at least compared to what I am interested in today. I still want to talk about ethical theories, sociological paradigms, and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. I am still interested in generational, organizational, and media studies. What has changed is my purpose for writing such works.
I realize now that, when I wrote these “articles,” my primary focus wasn’t so much excavation of truth but instead ticking a box. These were homework assignments, after all. I just wanted to churn out something to be grade. And, as I read many of my old works, that fact sure does show. At the time, I thought I was being clever, despite the deadline I was given (Yep, I’m one of those dreaded, 11th hour, last-minute writers). Looking back, I’m pretty sure my instructors fairly assessed my work as run-of-the-mill undergrad fare (or were too overworked to care and just gave me the pass).
So, given this revelation, I cannot, in good conscience, put out what I’ve written in the past. Either I don’t yet have the skill to polish these turds, or they need to stay where they are, in Academia Limbo. However, I can definitely work with the concepts I had in mind when I wrote these pieces. Therefore, that will be my current plan. I will take something that I wrote, oh, three to five years ago, and rip it the hell apart. But then I will take that nugget of insight in that pile of crap that I think is worthwhile and make a less stinky pile of crap around that.
Cool? Cool.
Originally published at https://errolcatanes.com on April 11, 2021.
