I’m fairly certain that Jasper is channeling my blog in this photo.

Sad, bored, somewhat indifferent.

Sigh.

To be fair, it’s not like I’ve completely neglected this place. I’ve actually been posting fairly regularly, even adding video content into the mix. But there are times, like this week for example, where the desire to write (or create anything for that matter) just isn’t there even thought the desire to want to create something definitely is.

Does that make sense?

I blame summer and its abundance of busy-ness and the sun guilting me into spending as much time with it as possible.

“I’m only really around for a few months, y’know. You’re in Canada after all.”

Touché, sun.

Not that I have any regrets about spending more time outside and having summer adventures but I also can’t ignore that nagging part of me that wants to sit down and make something. That part gets cranky when I’m just too tired or busy or uninspired to make a decent effort.

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few months consuming a lot of amazing online content (and sometimes offline content created by online content creators, which is extra awesome). Most of my jokes come from YouTube these days and a vast majority of the reading material material and music that I’ve been gravitating toward has been suggested and/or created by people who “exist” (to me) primarily online. I’ve enjoyed sitting back quietly and observing (and – let’s be real – participating in) the trends and shifts of online communities and cultures, as my quasi-anthropological mind is wont to do.

None of this is a bad thing. In fact, I like all of this. It’s all very fascinating.

Last week I sat in a conference room of Toronto’s swanky Fairmont Royal York hotel and joined roughly 600 other social media-loving professionals/nerds for Social Mix 2012. In that one-day conference I reveled in being surrounded people as jacked-up on internet culture as I am, soaked up briliant thoughts and ideas from people I greatly respect and admire (Danny Brown, Gini Dietrich and Gary Vaynerchuk to name but a few) and I left with a renewed sense of why I love this space so damn much.

Also, with more new reading material to pursue…

Perhaps my earlier statement of feeling uninspired is somewhat inaccurate. I’m actually feeling very inspired these days. I guess I’m just not sure where to start.

I wonder about this blog and what I want it to be. When it began a few years ago, it was a platform for branding myself as a young professional. Later I came to think of it as the diary of a grown-up that never wanted to grow up in the first place, but I don’t feel as if I’ve been as open as I want to be in that respect. I hover on the line of feeling like I need to keep They Call it Gumption professional (or, at least more professional than my dabblings on Tumblr) but also just wanting to share as honestly and genuinely as other bloggers do.

I also love creating video content but generally don’t know where to go with that medium either. I can sense the way the work of my favourite YouTubers influences my videos, but I know that’s not me and that what attracted me to them is how they are so completely themselves. I need to find my own thing but struggle to determine what that might be.

Maybe I just over think these things. I guess the only fair and logical thing to do is to just do it. Do it with heart and passion, in a way that is authentic and meaningful to, at the very least, me.

Now that I’ve given myself this permission, let’s see what happens…