I sense coming up on a watershed moment with blogging. For about two years now, I've been nothing but a camera with this blog: documenting, producing, taping, recording, writing, agonizing, goofing off, journaling, pleading, hand wringing, shouting, responding, whispering, thinking, pondering, dreaming, crying, screaming, muttering, mumbling, laughing, ROFLing, singing, scrutinizing, cajoling, forgiving, understanding, opinionating, falling, linking, resourcing, referencing, researching, stabbing, touching, linking always linking, reaching for, falling for, liking, contributing, taking a stand, embracing, accepting, rejecting, pleasing, surprising, dismissing, roaring, spitting, denying, ignoring, inspiring, bashing, beating, breaking, hoping, defeating, hitting, caressing, creating, molding, tearing down, loving, hating, burning, tossing aside, turning within, turning outward, stepping on, fucking with, seeking, proselytizing, flipping off, preaching, kissing off, making out, friending, antagonizing, pissing off, getting off, shooting the shit, annoying, flirting, spurning, pleasing, irritating, inciting, boring the shit out of, living out loud with anyone who stumbles into my world here.
But I reach a point of exhaustion and burnout, and yes, even for me, a point of informational overload. I wake up at 6am. By 8am I have a backlog of things I feel inspired and compelled to write about and respond to. I immediately start to prioritize, ranking what deserves my attention that day, in terms of blogging. And off I go. To nowhere, and for no apparent reason. Yet, should I not respond, for instance, to Mel's blog entry, then I won't rest easy until I've done so. And as we blog, war just rages on pointlessly, relentlessly over our heads. Born in domestic strife, and the national strife of the Vietnam War era, seems we've all been waging war since the day I first took a breath on this planet, stopping here and there only to catch our breath and build the machine back up in our momentary lapses of peace.
Lately, I've been late to appointments and meetings and such, due to my need to blog it out. Yet before blogging, I was an extremely punctual person. Old producer habits and organizational skills die hard, unless you're blogging every day. Something's been altered in me by blogging. Something has changed within my DNA almost. But I do not know yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I do wonder though, if I need to step back and try to figure out where to go next, or not, in terms of indie blogging?
This post put together with help from... my generation:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Seed Newsvine
6 comments:
Sometimes you just have to take a step back and remind yourself that you can't read and/or write everything. I used to feel guilty for occasionally taking a break from, like, the feminist blogosphere, or the political blogosphere (not that I venture into those environs very much anyway), or whatever else. But no more regrets here, lately. So! Re-center yourself. And breathe.
3/21/07
Dear Grayson,
Be prepared, Spring is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(season)
- "Severe weather most often occurs during the spring, when warm air begins to invade from lower latitudes while cold air is still pushing from the polar regions. Flooding is also most common in and near mountainous areas during this time of year due to snowmelt, many times accelerated by warm rains. In the United States, Tornado Alley is most active by far this time of year,"
for your senses.
Vic
just don't blog as much if you feel like you are doing too much :)
Btw...
I have the bootleg CD that that R.E.M. song is on.
Anyway. Feel free to adopt the new mantra I've adopted: "Have fun!" (with thanks to Steve Eley)
Sounds like you got blog fever!
Blogging is still young, so we've yet to see the patterns of when people blog a lot and blog a little. When something is new, your initial impulse is to sustain the original momentum. But, like all natural cycles, that often doesn't happen.
I felt bad for awhile when I blogged less. It felt like I was doing less. However, I was still editor of a publication that takes many hours out of my week to remain relatively cutting edge in the social media world. That's no small feat. So am I really doing less?
Just recently, I told myself "It's okay." It's okay to persue my own passions, at my own pace. If I'm playing X-Box and watching FRIENDS reruns all of the time, I'd be concerned about inactivity and waste. But along with my editor duties, I've decided to read John Milton, continue exploring rock music history, and fuck around with my novel.
I recently dropped improv comedy and stopped trying to be super-Kevin. It's hard. I feel the guilt, the pressure...like I could always be doing SOMETHING ELSE.
However, unless it's your calling, or you own a business, or you LOVE what you're doing...at the end of the day, it's your life that matters - not the blogosphere or the bottom line. :)
Post a Comment