I’ve drafted a billion different versions of this introduction trying to figure out a clever or unique way to welcome you to this thing: a fortunate opportunity, a strange experiment, whatever it might be.

Where I’ve landed is a desperate reach into the aether.

I’m writing, running on the fumes of hopes and dreams.  A misty toxic cloud of bad ideas surrounds me. After a grueling couple of weeks I finally decide to just write anything as long as I write. I’ll do a couple of edits here and there and leave you with whatever my short term most honest self has to offer.

As a result, I’ve decided I’m going to let you know why the name of this “blog” is Grey Thoughts by telling you about me and how my mind works.

That’s it. Nothing flashy. Just this one explanation.

Well, to it, then.

I’m conflicted. I’m an opinionated city boy who can’t seem to get off the fence. To make things worse, my imagination runs wild without my consent quite often.

The phrase “Different but Equal” keeps me up at night. The shadow of a tree’s branch scribbles on the bedroom walls every night. Focus becomes impossible while at work. It’s always in the back of my mind. I feel mad at times. I text myself the word to stare at it and read it repeatedly when I don’t have a napkin or a receipt to write on.

The interpretation of this phrase I most agree with: perspective is everything. The angle in which you observe and understand. Take gun control, for example. Yes, if you take all the guns away, less gun related deaths will happen but I’m sure a sudden rise in stabbings will follow.

I remain disconnected and have no personal investment in any argument. To my understanding, all of everything could mean nothing and not even be real. I do, on the other hand, have an endless interest in information and in ideas. Addiction is as close to the right word as I can think of.

It’s not possible to be 100% objective but I’ve taught myself to be fully capable of compartmentalizing the different aspects of my mind, both emotional and rational.

My rational mind gives me numbers, statistics, and comparisons. My conclusions are based on the facts and all the available evidence.

I’m on the fence about format, too. I don’t want any of these “blogs”, or whatever they are, to have a preset theme or purpose. I don’t want to use proper punctuation, rather, punctuation that reads most accurate to how I speak. There isn’t a point.

I refuse to write an essay, a report or a novel under a common format, if any at all. I want it to be grey, on the fence, between something coherent and nearly gibberish, yet, somehow focused and with a message. This site needs to reflect who I am and why I am, my opinions and thoughts, whether still on the fence or not. Adding format would be fake. I’d be lying to you about how I write, speak and who I am, how I behave and how I think.

I rather not lie to you. You should fully understand that I don’t know what I’m doing. Together we’ll learn to turn this into something great.

I’m not making any promises that any of this will be well done. Learning is part of the process. I’m okay with making mistakes so long as I can fix them in the future or improve on them. You should read Infected: The First Ten Days for the example of something poorly done. I will work at giving you my thoughts with more clarity the way I plan to work on Infected. Everything I gather and learn from writing this blog and my short stories I’ll put back into this blog and the series.

I’ll do the edits necessary to have a semi-refined but otherwise genuine voice behind my writing. Polish is good, but honesty and directness is more effective if the idea is moved across and the message is sent.

I’m learning how to polish right now. As I write this I learn something new. As I write this my level of commitment increases. This is more for me than for anyone reading it. It’s to prove to myself that I can start off as a meaningless nobody and progressively and proactively improve on who I am and what I do on this shit I call writing, on this crap I type up and pretend is made of gold.

I have the unique ability to believe anything and everything I write is genius. Anything and everything I write is refined and has some purpose greater than what I intend for it. That is because I am its creator. That is because it is part of me and if it comes out a steaming pile of dog turds, then, shit. I guess I suck, right? I am rational enough to see the division between loving something because I made it and loving something because it’s good. My goal is good, or even great, but it’ll take time.

Between a lack of format, no consistent theme or idea stretching across blogs, and the fact that my interests change from one second to the next, I find myself existing between two things at all time, yet, never either. Neither black nor white. My thoughts are always undecided. Divided by the rift of rational and irrational.

I know this is an incoherent mess.

I know I’m random and stray way off topic.

I expect you to adjust to my strange way of being, my lazy way of thinking and my lack of concern.

I plead with you to give my mind a chance to share in the things I hold dearest: my thoughts and memories. They’re a unique brand of Yin-Yang. They’re balance between love and hate, heaven and hell, left and right, black and white.

Grey.

My thoughts are grey, on the fence, outside the bubble. You only see the full picture when you aren’t part of it. Otherwise, you see only what is immediately around you.

I don’t expect a large audience. I’ll honestly be amazed if anyone reads the nonsense I write at all, but I will write whether or not someone is reading. I’ll argue with myself over the minor details in trivial nonsense for my own amusement if I must. Even if it sinks, the ship won’t be abandoned. I’ll sink with it. This, I promise.

Hello! My name is Jack Thomas and I welcome you to my Grey Thoughts.