“I’m an ordinary bloke, but I feel as if I’m living the life of another. For the past five years, I’ve lived almost every dream I’ve ever had. Several careers and a lack of direction all came together when I was 30 and I found a previously untapped ability to use my experience and make things happen. It doesn’t feel like work.
I’d pay to do my job. I am the accidental journalist and this is my story.”
What an introduction, eh? Rarely am I struck by a blog that offers such wisdom and intelligence as is shown in Someone Else’s Life. Blackrat (as he’s known on his blog) is a truly remarkable individual and I found myself absolutely riveted by his writing.
My first impression of the blog was a general “WTF?!” as I tried to maneuver my way about the various links, it all eventually fell into place for the most part as I stumbled through the archives to read. You do need a full resolution of 1024×768 though, as all the content and layout (and there’s lots of it) takes up the entire screen, however it’s very easy to read and the photos that are frequently posted aren’t so ridiculously big as to slow me down much (always appreciated by a surfer on a slow connection). It has several sections, though I mainly concentration on the “This Life” blog, easily traversable through the calendar.
Immediately upon my arrival at the blog, I read the introduction and then jumped into the “More about me” section where I found out how this man got to be a freelance journalist, one of the few professions I truly admire and straight away, his entry struck me…
“Freelancing is tough; it’s a competitive market and money is tight, but the rewards and perks are out of this world. Most Bloggers could do what I do. Writing is half the battle. Add in your unique and diverse experience allied to a thirst for knowledge and a love of English and you could argue that you were born to do it.”
Apply that to any of the millions of well educated bloggers out in the webisphere and you’d have millions of freelance journalists giving poor Blackrat a run for his money. Even I got a bit of a tingle when I thought about journalism as a possible profession for myself.
You can already tell that this entry set the tone for the rest of the blog (i.e., a very good one).
Blackrat is a great observer of people, life and everything that surrounds him and it’s demonstrated in his writing. Always optimistic, even when he say’s he’s not feeling 100%, I came away with the impression that this guy never gets so far down as to be depressed.
“Journalism has opened up all sorts of doors to me and I’d have been foolish not to indulge my love of aviation as a result of it. For me, there is nothing quite like that feeling as you punch through thick, impenetrable cloud into clear, endless blue sky dominated by the sun. It’s a thought that’s always with me in my lowest moods – however bad things are, above the clouds the sun shines always. It’s always summer at 30,000ft – and the views are fantastic.”
Obviously you’d be hard pressed to be pessimistic with thoughts like that bouncing about the inside of your skull.
Something that also struck me about this blog was the photos, they are terrific, and if you can’t get into the writing, then the photos are sure to impress, they’re unreal. This is definitely one for the favorites, no matter what your tastes!Someone Else’s Life