Why I Write — Reflections on History, Family, and the Pressure Relief Valve
Today I’ve been pouring out words again. Thank God for my audio recorder and transcriber—without them, none of this would get out of my head and onto a page. Writing is so much easier now than it was back when I first started.
Speaking of beginnings… I’ve been going back into the archives, digging up the earliest things I ever put down. At the time, I didn’t care what happened to those words—I just needed them out of my head before I exploded. But over the last twenty years, writing has gotten easier, more natural, and now I realize I’ve been building something: a personal record, part journal, part history, part family story.
Somewhere along the way I started curating my old posts—separating the fluff and the memes from the real writing. It’s work, but it’s fun. Every piece comes stamped with a date and my name, little markers of growth, travels, thoughts, struggles, and passions. Trucking, technology, firearms, family—pieces of a life lived on the road and at home.
I’m not famous. I’m just a guy. But I’ve come to believe that ordinary people have insights worth saving—sometimes more than the politicians and so-called experts who think they know best. My writing isn’t carved in stone, but it’s solid enough that I rarely change my opinions once they’re formed. Everything I say is filtered through my background, my upbringing, my faith, and my belief in humanity’s ability to destroy itself when left unchecked.
That’s why history matters. If you’re not a student of history, you’re doomed to repeat its mistakes. Civilizations collapse the same way we see our own society fraying today. And yet, the examples of the past also teach us how to survive and do better—if we’re willing to learn.
So why do I keep writing? Because my brain is messy. It’s not a neat filing cabinet; it’s a teenager’s car, stuffed with things wherever they’ll fit until you finally have to unpack, sort the laundry, and throw away the trash. Writing is how I clean it up. It’s my pressure relief valve.
I don’t do this for recognition. I don’t do it for fame. I do it because I have no choice—the words have to come out. If they mean something to me, and maybe someday to my kids or grandkids, that’s enough.
If nothing else, these pages will show them who I was: a truck driver, a husband, a dad, a firearms instructor, a man with thoughts worth putting down. Not because I was anybody important, but because I was me.
And if my words manage to pass on even a small piece of what I’ve learned, then the mission’s accomplished.
