So Here's the Deal

Week before last, I had three different people mention that I hadn't blogging much. One of them, Dan Phillips, was kind enough to IM me, and we chatted for a bit. That was great.

Another one, my brother, pointed out that even my sister was doing more blogging than I was. I checked. He was right.

I sat down to really think about why that was. Turns out, like most of life, it's complicated, and there isn't an individual cause; it's multi-faceted.

Part of the answer goes back almost two years, to my most productive blogging period, and doesn't reflect too well on me, because was in my previous job. It seems pretty clear that at least some of what I was doing was robbing my earthly master at times.

The new job has required more time and attention from me, because I'm learning new things, and because unlike my previous jobs, I literally don't get paid if I'm not doing the job. That's a pretty powerful motivation - I never realized how much. I may venture into discussing the joys and challenges of self-employment, but for now, suffice it to say that my motivation to perform has never been higher.

I've also poured myself back into reading books. I was spending so much time reading blogs that I had time for little else, and I decided that if I wanted to have any hope of reading even a substantial portion of the books I've collected in my library thus far, I had best get to it.

You can add the fact that I'm a slow writer, and if I don't get something down that I like in the initial draft, it ends up in rewrite purgatory, and it's unlikely it will ever make it back out.

The whole blogging thing had turned into a ruthless treadmill - an endless cycle of half-finished posts and urgent, unimportant replies that were wearing me out.

Through the circumstances above, with other factors added in, I'd found myself with a desperate need to downsize my busyness, and blogging was really the only thing in my life I was prepared to give up and not feel guilty about it.

I considered quitting altogether. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead I scaled back. This was done unconsciously, by the way; it's only now, in retrospect, that I can see it with some clarity.

But I find myself bitten with the bug again. I figured out how to view saved HTML pages from the SD card on the used Treo my brother gave me, so I can save blogs for offline reading.

I've finally decided on the best way to allocate my time, to keep track of my files, and what program(s) to use to complete the task, and that should help with the organization piece of it.

But I'm not quite ready to say "I'm back." Like an older person who becomes seriously ill and then recovers, I'm not sure I'll ever be active to the extent that I was before. But I'll at least try to make it a point to get around to blogs of family and friends, and leave a comment once in awhile, if only to remind you that I'm still around.