It's already two years since I posted my first blog entry. At the same time it feels like first steps of a long journey - and a long way already travelled. I'm happy about all the comments and discussions the blog has sparked. At first I felt slightly uneasy about starting the blog while many things were still so unfinished, uncertain and messy; both in my own life and with the practical details of Enormous Elk site. Well, these things haven't changed so much, the site and my own life still lack a lot of organization and functionality I'd like to see (and what I can plan in my mind, but constantly fail to implement in the level of practical daily reality). Then, on the other hand, it has been actually very therapeutical to do it this way. Also, the stats say that nearly 33% of world's population suffer emotional disorders or mental problems at some point of their lives. So heck, why not to write openly about it.

This is so very typical for my personality. I tend to see simple little details connected to some deeper basic issues. Like, "why there isn't a "search" function in this site? You are using Drupal, right? Drupal offers tagging functionality out-of-the-box, with it you could easily mark your blog entries with different tags, and then allow users to sort out a list according to those tags - it is easy to do, just set up and configure the stuff and the blog will become so much readable!" - these are questions I sometimes ask myself, and then I reply: "Yeah, yeah, I know. My rational mind knows all that - but somehow I always find other things to do, I lack some self-organization in my life, I often find it hard to concentrate on such simple things. I've been trying to understand why is that and what should I do alter that tendency, and I think it boils down to the freeze-reaction. So, to tidy up and to better organize this site, I first have to solve my internal problems. As anything I do is anyway just reflecting what there is inside me - as long as there is a mass of messy laggy slow numb unsure disorganized feelings inside me, so will be everything I do. But then what? I have been working with this, and I will keep on going, be it slow or quick progress."

Also, I'd like to say that there are still a lot of thoughts and ideas waiting to be written about. Some ponderings about society and politics, feminism or and other -isms, liberalism and tradition. All that kind of theoretical stuff. Fictional stories and some silly humour. And then, of course, just those diary-like entries about my daily life in the woods. At the moment of writing this, the very first blog entry has 93 likes. That is about 9 times more I thought =) So a big thank you for everybody reading, commenting and participating. I wish you well - rock on!

EDIT:
Right after posting this, my academical mind kicked in. "Where does that figure 33% come from? Is it just gossip, or can you verify it somehow?". Alas, at the moment I'm already bit too tired to do any proper research into it. Instead I just did a quick search with duckduckgo, and picked an article from 2004 which quotes a study led by Ronald Kessler, a researcher from Harvard Medical School. And it says: "The most common ailments everywhere except Ukraine were anxiety disorders, which include panic attacks, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder. In Ukraine, where unemployment is rampant as the country struggles with westernization, mood disorders including depression topped the list, Kessler said."

Well, this touches something in my heart. During these two years of blogging I've developed a special sympathy for people of Ukraine - for many different reasons which I'm not going to analyze here. And the stats show that of all the visitors of Enormous Elk site the top4 countries are USA, China, Ukraine and Finland. (Ukraine and Finland with about the same amount of visitor, China being double of Finland, and USA 8 times more than visits from Finland). No matter where you are from, no matter what is your political stance or emotional state, all in all, my personal feel is that deep down we are all brothers and sisters. And there is a problem somewhere - the mankind has been polluting both the planet and human minds, creating trouble and problems here and there. My sympathies are with everyone struggling to survive, to recover, and to seek peace, love and wisdom.