Hi there! My name is Patrick Flattery, and I am 20 something (don’t you dare tell me late twenties) trying to play around with making a website for fun. I will probably update this sporadically as my interest in it wanes in and out but thought a website could provide an interesting place to keep some of my thoughts and interests as well as play around with web development.
If you are on this site I have a feeling you already know me, but if not here are some descriptors. Six foot two caucasion male with blue eyes and brown hair. There! Perfect description for a cop looking for a perp. Also just the right amount of detail on the hair. No need to include any details of how it might be thinning or receding. Which is something I’m totally dealing with in a mature, non-existential way and not as an everyday reminder of the passage of time, loss of youth, and the imminence of death :). Okay, so what else about me? If you were to ask me when I was five I would tell you that my favorite color is blue and I like dogs. While still true, I no longer think of them as defining factors. Instead I would focus on considering myself a friend to all. The type of person who loves to make new friends and keep up with old ones.
I am at an intersection of my life right now. After graduating college and spending two and a half years working at a pension I decided I needed a change. I quit my job, leaving coworkers I liked and a role I was so-so on to travel. I spent a bit less than a year abroad traveling around 20 countries and staying in hostels. It was very eat, pray, love of me. Would I call it life changing? Yes. Would I say it helped me discover myself and my passions. A bit. I haven’t seen the movie or read the book but I have a feeling Julia Roberts has a bit more of a revelation than me. What it did do is teach me to go out there and make a life you want. I saw people making life work for them instead of adapting to what life had set for them. It was important to see that as someone who just entered the “real world”. But when I told someone I was traveling with that I needed to get back to the real world and find a job he told me that where we were was the real world and that stuck with me. Any world is real if you make it real.
Once a friend (hi Miles if you are reading this) asked me what my biggest fear is. I answered without thinking, “being boring”. So now I am working on making myself less boring by following random passions. This site will contain plenty of those passions turned hobbies. I used to get upset that my passions and hobbies were fleeting. Lasting temporarily, but I think its time to lean into it. Pick up the passion while it serves me and ride it out and once it feels forced move to the next. Knowing in a couple months theres a good chance I get back in the swing of it.