In the beginning...
That was 3,653 days ago. Ten years later and... I think The Knight Shift has remained pretty faithful to that mission. It's been a place to share my thoughts and experiences. To write about the world around me from my own perspective. To talk about things that I find interesting and share those with others.Friday, January 02, 2004
Here we go, fast and furious...
I made an attempt to start a blog in March of last year. And it woulda been a fun thing to have done last year, had real-life situations not taken precedence. In a nutshell, 2003 was one major fiasco after another. But God brought us through, none the worse for wear and maybe a little more wiser for all of it. 2004 is starting out with things looking far more on the upside for my lovely lil' spousal overunit and myself.
Anyhoo, my name is Christopher Knight and this is my blog. I'm 29 years old, presently living in north-central North Carolina with my bride of a little more than a year... At the moment I do payroll and computer work for a retailer here in town, although that will soon be changing as I've begun " taking some things on faith" as it were, and trying to step out into the larger world a bit more boldly than life allowed for this past year. So maybe it's a good thing that I'm starting this blog now: 2003 was a lot of rotten things all come together. Perhaps I tried taking control of things more on my own. In 2004, I'm going to give it all over to God, and let Him make of it as He will. I've no doubt that if I can do that, that this is going to be a great new year.
So this blog will (hopefully) chronicle that in a timely fashion, along with other things. It'll also be a sounding board for some of my musings. Politically I could be considered a strong conservative, although I detest what the Republican party is fast becoming and loathe what the Democrat one long ago became. I'm a huge fan of Star Wars and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (and may write at length on Return Of The King after seeing it for the third time hopefully this weekend), enjoy a number of computer games both online and off, and generally will try anything for fun so long as it's not immoral, illegal or causing cancer.
But... wow, has it been a wild ride or what?
This blog has gone from writing about politics, to documenting my own stab at running for office. It has reviewed everything from movies and video games to restaurants and museums. It's chronicled my attempts at filmmaking (something I'm feeling compelled to pick up again soon) and it saw one of my videos go viral worldwide. This blog has wound up taking on corrupt politicians, evil cult leaders and a multi-billion dollar corporation or two (or three). It has been a place for malcontents and moonshiners (and sometimes both at once). It has even made national headlines a time or two. I have written on this blog everywhere from film festivals to the Columbia River in Oregon to another country. As the Man in Black said, "I've been ev-ah-ree-where, man!"
The Knight Shift has been a place where I have written about my successes, as well as my failures. I realized a long time ago that "unto thy self be true", as the Bard put it. On this blog I've written about disappointments and let-downs and more than a few abject failures. Sometimes I wonder if I held back too much (the heartbreak of divorce being chief among them). But I also like to believe that the good has far outweighed the bad. And here, ten years later, this blog has taken on another role: sharing my experiences about having a mental illness. The illness itself is pretty lousy... but I'm determined to make this a triumph instead. This morning during my daily devotional time it hit me: if I did not have bipolar and have everything associated with it happen to me, God wouldn't have had the space to work in my life and accomplish some seriously amazing things! Without bipolar, there would not have been that testimony I could have of what God has done and is still doing. Do I wish that my mind wasn't turning against me like it does at times? Absolutely. But if I had to choose between being "normal" and witnessing God at work in my life, I would pick God every time, no matter what happens to me.
This is also Post #5,000 on The Knight Shift! Seriously: I had not planned on the two milestones coinciding with each other. It just happened all its own. I knew the five thousandth post was coming up all the way back in September and I had... well, different plans for it. Those did not come to pass, but maybe that's providential as well. I mean, ten years of blogging and 5,000 posts are each a hefty achievement. To have them together is almost a cosmic wink.
When I read that first post again, I can't help but feel like I'm back at square one. 2003 was a very difficult year toward its end, and the final months of 2013 had me in the deepest depression that I've ever had to endure. Far more now than I did then, I have at last been able to be content with whatever my situation may be, because I do know that God is going to bring me through it. He has brought me through so much already (and I've chronicled a lot of it on this site) and I've no reason to believe He won't do it. Again and again and again.
Wow. Don't really know what else to say. The more I think about it, the more stunned I am that this blog really did get this far. That it's still going and Lord willing, will keep being a place that I can share stuff with this site's readers for many more years to come. And speaking of that...
There are two people I owe the longevity of The Knight Shift and whatever success it might have had. The first is God. The second... is this site's readership. And there are a lot of you. A lot of regular readers. From all over the world! On any given day this blog gets visitors from all over the United States (including several in the United States Congress, gotta wonder why) and a whole bunch of other countries (a long-coming "greetings" to my friends in Moscow!).
I would have probably given up a long time ago were it not for this blog's devoted readership. And to be honest, I don't know where I would be personally without the encouragements and prayers that many of y'all have given me in all this time.
From the bottom of my heart, and more than I could possibly convey with words, to each of The Knight Shift's readers, I say this:
Thank you.
So... where do we go from here?
A few things are on my plate at the moment, and I'll get to them as work permits (yes, contrary to what some have claimed I do have an active career, as a freelance writer. And I may be diversifying very soon, parse that as you will). More films are definitely coming. I don't know if I'll run for office ever again but if that happens, I'm certainly going to document that journey as well. In fact, were I to run I've some ideas for campaign commercials that will make that Star Wars-inspired school board ad downright tame in comparison!
We'll see how it goes. "Always in motion, is the future," Yoda observed.
Anyhoo, for ten years and five thousand posts, The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor thanks you and yours and... I'm looking forward to seeing where the next ten years and another five thousand posts will bring us! :-)
