The eWorld is not rocking my casbah today.
1. What is up with the spammers? Just this afternoon, I’ve had to delete 200 pieces of junk out of blog moderation. Add to that the “urgent notifi…” that have escaped my company’s spam filter.
2. How many of you like the new face of Flickr? Be honest. The new Organize and Batch Edit functionalities discourage my brand of intuitive.
3. There is definitely some post-Jazzfest, end-of-semester, pre-election, pre-summer lack of blogthusiasm going around. This time last May was similar. I defer to brimful‘s hypotheses on the relative silence:
… I have started to wonder if this blog business is cyclical. Do jerks like me, at some point in their life, spontaneously decide they want to start a blog? And then, like a commitment-phobe, do they just one day decide it is no longer worth the hassle? Or do people start blogging when they have some discretionary time on their hands? Then, perhaps, they reach a different phase of their life, and they simply lose the capability to write regularly? And is that cyclical too? Can people only be free for so long?
Or do we just get sick of ourselves?
That last question is quite interesting when, on occasion, a blog post is my way of poking my arm with a sharp object to see if I’m still there. Can I still connect with you in a meaningful and relevant manner through this medium? Again, the last time I asked for increased blogging activity, Katrina came along. Be careful what you wish for, grasshoppa.
I think that last sentence of mine employed the “royal we” more than anything else. I just get really tired of what I’m writing about some times- and if it’s tiresome to me, I feel really badly for the unsuspecting victims who find themselves reading it.
It’s hard for me to imagine you in the same predicament, because you seem to write about varying subjects, and always with depth. That’s my two cents, at least! :)
brim, I applied that sentence to a few of us who have discussed how, even and especially in post-K New Orleans, talking (blogging) only gets you and your readership so far. Following that, it’s time to DO or NOT DO, as the case may be. Like the human body tells you when it requires certain nutrients, the psyche is good at informing you that it’s time to do something else or just to take a break. The trick is to listen to it and not become a victim of habit.
Conversely, there are times when you have so much to share that can help other people get things done and there simply isn’t the time to blog. If life were perfect and pliable, would we still blog?
Hmm, I definitely agree with you about the doing vs. thinking/talking/blogging balance. I have liked to think of it that way. :)
Interesting quote. Some days I feel like “I blog, therefore I am,” and get worried that people will think I’m dead. I actually started to blog about a month and a half before Katrina, and somehow wound up with a lot of traffic due to the hurricane. It also became a place where my family members could check up on me while I was moving around and things were up in the air. Now that they all check it, I feel guilty not blogging. But then, I also like it a lot… I’ve had a website for several years, and the blog just seems more flexible and updateable.
Sarah, I understand. My blog is now the main way in which, say, my mom keeps up with me. She thinks there’s something wrong when I haven’t posted for a while. Not that she doesn’t call me almost all the time anyway.
[As an aside, I need my mom to comment here. Then again, do we really want to open that Pandora’s box?]
Maybe I should just say something controversial like TODAY I HATE UNIX BECAUSE MY PROGRAMS WON’T LOAD and see if that elicits more of a response than I’ve been getting.
i’ve been thinking about this for some time too. i feel brim when she says that i get bored of myself and i feel bad for my readers. again, not that i have an exciting life when i write about something, but still.
i love what you do and how you write….and these questions are always good.