Oh what a tangled web we weave.........

On November 22 2018 it will be 55 years since the JFK assassination.

At this moment in time I feel that if I had started my research at 12.30 pm that day I would still be trying to catch up with everything that has been written or filmed or discussed about this incident.

My main issue at the moment is distraction.  I am writing this in a hope that I can begin to focus my racing mind and find the best way for me to work.  The thing is because it is so complicated it seems that the best thing to do is find a path and to follow it.  Easier said than done.

The thing is that all my previous interest leads me to read certain articles and books more readily than others.  Certain aspects of the case hold my attention and spark more neurological connections than others.  Some areas I find complicated and to be honest as dull as ditch water, no matter how relevant or important they are.

And all the while I am, in true me style, finding it hard to focus.  There is so much stuff to read, I must organise how I will read it, I need to devise a chronology of events, create a scale model of Dealey Plaza in my front room, read every declassified file, consider every idea and theory every written..........and so on.

But I think I have had at least one good idea today.  I am going to use this blog to help with the focus.  It will be like my assistant.  Or perhaps therapist.  It will be the place I come to to actually collect my thoughts and ideas and try to devise my own methodology in how I will study the JFK assassination.

Today my current thought is that the writing of essays is one way of looking at singular topics within the assassination and examining them in detail.  I need to cut through the excessive detail and focus on things that have made my brain light up.  Things I believe are relevant to the study of this event, which do not necessarily have anything to do with the number of bullets, or the movements of Oswald, or even the day itself.

I suppose it could be seen as a sort of wholistic approach to the assassination.  For me the key question is why, not just the why it happened but why did the investigation turn out as it did.  Why are we still trying to understand it and why there are so many divisions and opinions.  Why we are prone to make it all so personalised in terms of how we hold what we understand, believe and argue about so closely to us and have it as something that is entwined in our identity.

I cannot see the assassination as a single event.  I cannot see it without understanding the history of the era, the ideals of that time and the honesty about how the administration was viewed and considered by the American public and those in Washington.  I cannot see it without looking at where we are today.  I cannot see it without looking at the sociological and psychological aspects of it all.

I also can not see it as a detached unemotional human.  Every now and then I will read something,consider something, watch something and find I am crying.  That also has to be part of what I am doing.  As does self reflection and most painfully of all honesty in looking at myself and why this always has been part of my life and seemingly increasingly always will be. If it is cathartic or disturbing only time will tell.

The realisation I have had today however is this.  I cannot read more than one thing at a time.  I cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.  I cannot step back in time to begin this work and become overnight an expert in the assassination.  My journey of discovery is one of single steps which will change.  There is no one path to take.  The road will be built for me to step on just before I step on it.  That is ok.  The seemingly chaotic research I have undertaken so far is only to be expected.  If you are thrown into deep water you are bound to splash about a bit and flounder before finding the surface and knowing which swimstroke to take.