Trying to get a handle on this writing thing all over again.
I remember a time when I used to post here so frequently that I'd have at least two or three items to share every day. Of course those days included copious links to YouTube clips, pictures, stores, and other items that were somebody else's content. But when posting with such frequency, it's hard not to begin synthesizing at least semi-original thought into the occasional post exceeding one paragraph. That's because to post so many items required me to scour the internet, reading news stories, political commentary, tech journals, and link-dump websites; emulating, in my poorly approximated way, the sort of curatorial approach of Jason Kottke on his eponymous site.
Well the major difference between years ago and today is that I so rarely have that time at work. It's unsurprising, too. I'm no entry-level desk jockey anymore. I actually have people relying on my specialized institutional knowledge. So I can't give the same level of attention to my beloved internet as I used to.
Another difference is that I've long since worn myself out on political and social diatribes. Sure, I may still have a few left in me, and there will never be a shortage of moral, social, and systemic ills, but I've lost the desire and stamina to be a public complainer - hurling my outrage to servers far and wide. Even on Twitter I hesitate to complain, knowing that there are far too many real problems out there to which my petty travails pale in comparison.
And Twitter brings up the final shift. That's been, increasingly, my venue for the quick share; links to McSweeney's articles, pictures, cool products, or funny videos. I hate to post things twice, and I think it's the worst kind of internetting to tweet a link to a blog post that only links to something else.
All told, that's reduced my blogging largely to my own photography with the occasional recap of a restaurant or event I attended.
I'm hoping, however, to simply write when the feeling strikes me. That means that, for a while, my blog may feel more like - GASP! - a journal. I'm okay with that. I want to try writing as a mental exercise, and if that means stream of consciousness, incoherent rambling, so be it. I see it as an opportunity to clean my mental house, uncovering and making room for those things truly worth writing about. Maybe I don't have anything buried in my head worth writing about, but at the very least I can't be a better writer without first writing.
So there's that.