Anyone who’s ever tubed down a river knows one thing: the narrower the river, the faster and more perilous the ride. Everything dips and turns faster than you’re comfortable with, and all you can do is react. Sometimes that means some embarrassing shrieking. Sometimes it means ripping your favorite new bathing suit. Sometimes that means a good hit up the buttocks that leaves a souvenir. The river, bubbling and babbling, holds your full attention as you navigate your way through. There is no time to look for a better way. All focus has to be on staying afloat.

Floating on a wider river, however, means you can not only float, but you can actually see what’s around you. You can take in the surroundings. You can have a good time and live to tell about it. You can have conversations with people that go far deeper than you ever expected because, hey, what else can you really do?

This is the heart of Wider Aspects.

This is about taking a step back and finding a wider angle. When I was in high school, one of my favorite happy accidents was stumbling on those late-night movie viewings on AMC – back before it was the land of Mad Men and those Breaking Bad – and seeing this wonderful, vivid films with a wider screen ratio. Letterboxed but never boxed in, these films, with their wider and true aspects, just felt like so much more. They felt more epic, more emotional, more like something approaching Life – even when you saw an alien burst forth from the chest of a screaming, convulsing man.

Wider Aspects is about finding that wider aspect ratio. This is about making life as wide as it is long. This is about doing as much as it’s about talking. This is my attempt to move from a narrower river to one wider, one that allows me to indulge in the things I really want to indulge in; have the conversations I want to have, tell the stories I want to tell, draw the pictures I’ve always wanted to draw. To be slow to draw conclusions, and quicker to find new perspective.

This is my outlet. Free for you to see; free for you to respond to. It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be fun. And it’s going to, at times, be goofy as hell.

We are living in a word dominated by input. We go from screen to screen – our phone, our computer, our TV, our tablet, and back to our phone – and are receiving millions of messages throughout the day. We have no lack of input. What we do have, however, is a lack of output.

This is my attempt at output. May it run as wide as it runs long. And may you enjoy it.