Putting this place in perspective
One of Alabama's most influential, most consistent blogging voices has fallen silent. My best wishes go out to Dan, proprietor of the recently shuttered Daily Dixie and the not-so-recently shuttered Between the Links. I hope we haven't heard the last of him, in both the online and offline worlds.
Bloggers, myself included, navel-gaze far too often, so feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you aren't interested in that. News of Dan's decision -- and to me, it does qualify as news -- reminds me that in almost four years of mostly on-again, but (sadly) increasingly off-again blogging, I've had to overcome the urge to quit for good more times than I care to count.
The considerations have been numerous and predictable: real-life obligations, no pay for the site, frustration with the increasingly hyperpartisan nature of the blogosphere, lack of time, lack of motivation, and sometimes, lack of anything to say that I haven't already said better before. Blogging, like any other hobby, can consume huge chunks of time, and its nature is such that it can burn out its aficionados in a hurry.
Given how many times I've let self-imposed return deadlines roll by without a sign of life in the last few months, some of you could make a fine case that, in a way, I already have quit. But in my mind -- the arbiter that makes these sorts of things official -- this place is up and running and prone to having new content at any moment.
I have my hopes that "any moment" will come sooner rather than later -- and it probably will -- but whether it will be later today or weeks from now, I can't say for sure. What I will say, though, is that it will come in due time, and that it will come not out of a sense of grim obligation but out of a sense of cathartic enjoyment.
In the end, it's just a blog. And it's important to keep it that way.
Bloggers, myself included, navel-gaze far too often, so feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you aren't interested in that. News of Dan's decision -- and to me, it does qualify as news -- reminds me that in almost four years of mostly on-again, but (sadly) increasingly off-again blogging, I've had to overcome the urge to quit for good more times than I care to count.
The considerations have been numerous and predictable: real-life obligations, no pay for the site, frustration with the increasingly hyperpartisan nature of the blogosphere, lack of time, lack of motivation, and sometimes, lack of anything to say that I haven't already said better before. Blogging, like any other hobby, can consume huge chunks of time, and its nature is such that it can burn out its aficionados in a hurry.
Given how many times I've let self-imposed return deadlines roll by without a sign of life in the last few months, some of you could make a fine case that, in a way, I already have quit. But in my mind -- the arbiter that makes these sorts of things official -- this place is up and running and prone to having new content at any moment.
I have my hopes that "any moment" will come sooner rather than later -- and it probably will -- but whether it will be later today or weeks from now, I can't say for sure. What I will say, though, is that it will come in due time, and that it will come not out of a sense of grim obligation but out of a sense of cathartic enjoyment.
In the end, it's just a blog. And it's important to keep it that way.
posted by Alabamian at 2:10 AM
<< Home