I’ve been trying to figure out lately why I no longer blog like I used to. Several theories have been advanced:
1. Marriage and children have scrambled my brains and exhausted my powers of thought.
I DO feel more tired, and I certainly have fewer hours in the day. I’m waking up at 6am and going to bed at 10pm or 11pm or sometimes 8:30pm. I have few precious, peaceful hours which aren’t work hours – and I just have other things to do with them than think of something interesting and blog about it. I used to think in the car and in the shower, but now I use that time to just not think, since I seem to be doing thinking most of the rest of my day.
2. My universe has shrunk so much that I have little external stimulation to prompt blog topics.
One of the themes of my blog since I got engaged 3 years ago was that I could feel my world shrinking.
You know, they say, throughout your young adulthood that “the world is your oyster.” You can become anything you want. You can go wherever opportunity takes you. You can sieze the moment. You are free.
However, marriage, family, career, and church have brought all those vast horizons down to a very local circle of concern. I interact with, on average, the same 25-50 people every week. If it weren’t for Facebook and other online communications, I would have very little contact with friends from earlier in my life.
I think this change has been slightly numbing. Dont’ get me wrong – I’m very happy and wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. I love my wife and my son – they are the most important things in my life – and I’m so blessed to have such a great job and feel a part of a church community – but living in these chosen parameters has shrunken my exposure to expansive thoughts, new experiences, and groundbreaking changes in my life. I’m solidly anchored with the full hand of cards I’ve been dealt, and it’s gonna take a while to play this hand out.
So since I feel very little change in my life (based on where I thought I’d go or do or be), I just don’t find much novelty to blog about.
3. I’ve grown bored with even my own rhetoric.
This one is scary, but I think I’ve grown too comfortable with how I think. I’m no longer astounded when people don’t think like I do or agree with me, and it’s harder for me to get bent out of shape when things don’t go my way. I don’t exercise my thought processes or challenge my own assumptions often enough to create any kind of epiphany or discovery in my own thinking. (This is kind of sad now that I’ve typed it and read it, but I think it’s at least 80% honest and accurate)
4. I don’t find it blog-worthy that my kid just figured out how to unroll the entire toilet paper roll onto the floor while I was in the shower this morning.
A cuter, “hip parent” version of me would take pictures of him in the mess, add it to his scrap book, and write him a letter about the event he could read later on – all awesome things, don’t get me wrong. Me? I’m just in ornery parent mode. I just kind of cuss under my breath and clean it up rather than post it online and revel in the new discoveries. The goal of my blogging was always to have larger appeal than just grandparents (though they’re probably the only ones reading this now – Hi Mom, Hi Dad.), but maybe I’m wrong here. Maybe those types of discoveries are the flavor of life my blog has been lacking?
5. I have to go to the bathroom more often.
As one ages, it becomes more important to have close proximity to a working restroom. Twice during this post, I’ve had to visit the lavatory, and twice I’ve completely lost my train of thought by doing so.
Little reasons like this surely add up to why this blog isn’t quite as successful as it used to be.
6. I no longer obsess over TV shows.
American Idol was fun while it lasted, but it took a serious nose dive in Simon’s last season. Deep down I will still love the talent-show-on-TV format and I will be opinionated and critical to the core, but I’m just not feeling like it’s worth following and critiquing any of those yahoos much anymore.
7. I’m not sure who my blog audience is anymore.
I think it’s mostly just family reading this blog now. In my blogging heyday I had all kinds of strangers (friends of friends) reading this blog, too. Heck, I had all kinds of hits from around the world. Granted, most of them were from my top-ranked google keyword searches to posts like “top 10 most painful things” and “private island” and “wigwam song”. (Don’t ask me why people are searching for a wigwam song online!)
So – I’m not sure what you people want to hear about, either. Do you want me to bloviate about politics and national issues? Do you want me to just share pictures and stories about our family vacations and funny things WEJr does? Or do you want me to post more of my deep philosophies that I reserve the right to change at any time? Should I go back to challenging topics and wrestling with the large issues of the universe? Or do you not really care at all and you’ll commit to reading anything I post like some kind of blog-reading slave? Or should I just close the blog and move on?
Post your comments and I’ll try to figure out a strategy moving forward…