It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything of note. Here’s a list of reasons for that, but I’m not sure which ones have the most weight:
- I suffer from anxiety
- I suffer from mild depression and/or this winter has depressed the crap out of me
- I have a lot of work to do at my day job and feel guilty if I “waste” writing-time on myself
- I don’t feel like writing or sharing things that I once did, because Facebook has become the default destination for minor personal observations
- I feel like I can outsource being clever to Twitter
- I use my tumblr blog to post short book-excerpts and literature-related thoughts
- I let myself get distracted and drown in tweets and RSS feeds
- I spend too much time by myself and the lack of conversation really takes a toll on me
- I feel tapped out and don’t have much to say (I think this is a big one, but it’s just a symptom and not a cause; I’ve started a couple of posts that just seemed useless, so I zapped ’em)
- I make it too easy not to write
- I would rather write a book of anecdotes and observations about my old man
- I would rather launch a regular podcast, if I can just suss out some technical issues and get over my anxiety about asking someone to sit down for an interview
- I would rather work with Amy to make video-montages set to music
- I have a sneaking suspicion you’re all tired of my stories, observations and complaints
- I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m a fraud
- I don’t get around much anymore
I know that if I just get back to writing, it’ll alleviate a lot of the symptoms, but I just can’t do it. I’m afraid I sound like a DTC ad for an antipsychotic med.
Maybe I should go back to posting those What It Is updates every week, but I came to resent the imposition of those, too, just like all the other regular features I tried to write.
I often find myself singing John Entwistle’s song, 905: “All I know is what I need to know / Everything I do’s been done before / Every sentence in my head / Someone else has said / At each end of my life is an open door.”
It’s never a good sign for an adult to find life-parallels in any song by The Who. I’m gonna try and cheer myself up with some Sam Cooke.
I’ve really enjoyed the blog posts I’ve read from you as well as your Facebook updates. I like hearing about what people are reading, and it’s nice to find substantive thought in social media. Hope you won’t disappear and leave Facebook to be overtaken by people commenting on Cute Things Their Kids Do. Of which I am one. Keep writing! (I say this as the author of a blog no one reads! I hear ya!)
If you are looking for reasons, I like your blog better than Facebook because I get more information about what is actually going on in your life (and much better stories) on the blog than with the mini-updates that Facebook provides. And since I get irritated by how short and useless the general updates from family and friends on Facebook are (not the business updates, of course, but that’s different), you can understand why I don’t bother with Twitter at all.
The blog is much better, really. You shouldn’t give it up.
Gil, of the many things you are, a fraud is certainly not one of them. And you blog is to facebook as The New Yorker is to People magazine.