Before I get into it, going forward this blog will be a little different. We’re expanding the platform into the wonderful world of podcasting!

If you would prefer for me to read my essays to you, starting today all of my posts, including the one you’re about to read below can be found on my new podcast, “I’ll Come Back to This Later.” Check it out on Spotify or wherever you choose to get your podcasts from or here if you’re just like, lost.

I’ve flip-flopped on how I wanted to inaugurate this project. After all, it’s my introduction to a lot of you so it needs to be spectacular! Memorable! Breathtaking! Ooo la la!

Or at least good enough to warrant a follow-up visit. And just like that, I’ve shifted the pressure to future Pharra. That’s the exact attitude I had all throughout school and for most of my adult life. Worry about it later. It’s a never ending cycle, really.

Also, this isn’t part of anything I hoped to say here, but in my haste to save this document (shout-out to everyone that neglected to save that one time, lost an important document and had to do the whole thing all over again so now thanks to your PTSD you save everything like a lunatic) I realized I misspelled “ramblings” as “rambings” so now the document on my computer is tainted and if you walk away with any impression today, walk away knowing that I was too lazy to edit the title of this document to correct the misspelling. Past Pharra strikes again.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we (queue cliched phrase here) “are more connected than ever.” This last year in particular opened an entire new world of the internet. All of a sudden activities that we thought we needed to do in person were happening at home. Of course, some were better executed than others. Zoom stand-up sets just don’t have that same kick when it’s a comedian awkwardly telling jokes and holding for laughs while standing in their living room as their mom walks behind them on the way to the kitchen shaking her head in disbelief at the failure she’s raised. I mean, 31 years old and still at home without a job? Not that I would know from personal experience or anything.

We live in a time where everyone is a brand, everyone has a platform, and everyone likes to stand on that platform and shout their thoughts and opinions to everyone else on their own respective platforms. We’re all influencers now whether we like it or not or whether we’re getting paid to be or not.

Most of us aren’t.

Joke’s on us.

But if we’re all influencers, **takes a hit from the joint** then who is left to be influenced, dude?

Good question High Pharra and frankly, there probably isn’t an answer to it. Perhaps we’re all just in a circuitous hamster wheel. Influencing everyone and nothing at the same time. Let’s not dwell there. We’ve all seen the videos of the hamsters that move too fast and then end up flying out of the wheel wondering where it all went wrong.

What we put out in to “the internets” matters because people, excuse me, a person is listening. Those ramblings from an internet stranger are landing on someone’s ears.

We get 24 hours each day to do with it as we please and yet, we choose to spend a good deal of that time listening to certain individuals talk about whatever for a few moments. You don’t even have to be an expert or professional per se to share your learnings with the world. Got a great body? Boom. Fitness influencer. Made your friends giggle? Boom. Comedy influencer. Read an inspirational poster and shared the quote on your feed? Boom. Motivational speaker. The internet has become the embodiment of “going to a new school so changing my entire persona because no one knows me there and I can be whomever I want to be.” That is until someone that actually does know you in real life shows up in your feed to completely blow up your spot. Haters roll deep on the internet.

It’s a bizarre thing when you think about it. Maybe we find whatever an individual is talking about to be interesting or relevant. Maybe it elicits some sort of reaction out of us—a laugh because they’re hilarious or stupid or anger because they’re hilariously stupid. Maybe we just want to get to know someone a little better and the old fashioned way of walking up and starting a convo is just too conventional for our texting lives. Maybe we don’t even care what they have to say because we just like looking at them and have convinced ourselves it doesn’t matter what they’re saying because they’re hot.

Whatever the reason may be, each day we consume the random thoughts and opinions of internet strangers no matter how factual or fictitious they may be. These are people we don’t actually know but somehow grew to love or loathe depending on how you internet and turn into friends (or enemies) in our head.

I say all that to say, I come to you but a meager internet stranger bearing the fruits of my mind in the form of ramblings, musings, and opinions that I will state with the confidence of being factual. I am yet another voice in the abyss saying things that (hopefully) sound very clever and come across as thoughtful but know in your heart I am a dumb person who says and does dumb things. Worst of all, I enjoy my foolishness. Bask in it even.

I’m calling this experiment (I really tried to find a better word here because I know we’re all just sick to tears of hearing people’s futile attempts to put content on the internet as an “experiment” or “project” but alas), “I’ll Come Back to This Later.” God, I just know one day I’m going to mess up my own title and call it “I’ll Get Back to This Later” and really humiliate myself. This is why you shouldn’t buy domain names at 2am after drinking sparkling water. Yes, it’s just water and shouldn’t have any negative effects on your mental capacity but I maintain the carbonation doesn’t mix well with the sleep deprivation. “I’ll Come Back to This Later” represents the meandering procrastination we all have, but of which I consider to be one of my more marketable and dateable qualities.

Hiring managers and fellas…

How many times have we all started something, discovered an even more exciting project, promised to get back to the original project, and then allowed several months to pass before we actually returned to it? Don’t listen to me in that tone. I know we’ve all been there.

“I’ll Come Back to This Later” is going to be just what you’ve already sat through—a collection of written and verbal essays that say a lot while also saying nothing at all. They’ll go back and forth lingering between thoughts and varying degrees of seriousness because some days things are so dumb we have to laugh and other days we have to pause the jokes and recognize the gravitas of what’s going on. Let’s be real (shit, have we been faking it the whole time? I guess so. Isn’t that half of “influencing”? What is real? Who am I? Why are we here? Other existential questions designed to make us panic silently until we can qualm the pain with Netflix and alcohol).

I also guarantee at some point you’ll wonder why you even bother to listen/read (I can’t help but feel I need to come up with a word for this… Listad? Resten? I’ll work on it.). Perhaps it’s to get inspiration for your own content or you just want to laugh or you find something I’m talking about to be interesting. Whatever the reason may be, I hope you take these ramblings of an internet stranger and find some sort of a purpose in them. Or don’t. I can’t tell you how to live your life.

Now, I’m realizing I probably should have called this series, “Ramblings of an Internet Stranger.”

Dammit!