I’ve promised myself that 2020 will be the year I force myself to sit down at the keyboard every day and write. Many people I respect have told me I should, and from time to time I have tried, only to find myself fiddling around with the theme or fonts on the blog site, or drafting something and then deleting it. I’ve written all my life as part of my job, and there’s no dearth of subjects out there, so what has been holding me back? On reflection, there are three separate categories.
In Category No. 1 are what I’d call general excuses. These are devious things because they are each true to a greater or lesser extent. In no particular order:
- Everything Has Been Said. Especially in this era, where you can publish to the world with a push of the button, it’s hard for me to believe that anything I’d write hasn’t been written before. Lots of monkeys sitting at keyboards now, they’ve no doubt churned out multiple variants of anything I’d want to say.
- No One Reads More Than A Paragraph. We’ve been Twitterized and Facebooked and Meme-ed, we get most of our info now from the small screen. It’s TL;DR, baby; no one wants to read an extended, sophisticated argument. Fit it into 280 characters or a picture with a tagline or go home.
- Why Try to Sway When No One Ever Changes His/Her/Their Mind. It’s Fake News all the way down, no?
- I’m No Authority On Anything. I can research facts until my fingers are blue but in the end it’s just words, same as anyone’s.
- Authority Is Suspect Anyway. Our glib “Question Authority” bumper stickers from the 60’s somehow morphed into “Authority Lies.” If I know what I’m talking about, I must be trying to stick it to someone.
- Why Add To The Flotsam and Jetsam? All these extra words, it’s sort of like pollution, no?
I can manage those, because there are answers to each of them (not like I say it; some do; some try; yes, I am; truth is truth; folks can take it or leave it). Category No. 2 is harder, though.
- I Will Offend Someone I Care About. This one concerns me deeply. My friends vary across political, ideological, geographical, intellectual, and economic lines. They have their own strong views. Stating contrary views in a forceful way may hurt them.
- I Will Be Taken To Be Someone I’m Not. I love to play devil’s advocate. Pushing elements to their extreme, examining what coders call “corner cases,” can be enlightening. But in our current political and intellectual environment, one “wrong” statement can brand a person forever, glue a person into a category box they do not deserve. No one allows for the possibility that what a person can have multiple, non-binary beliefs, or may want to explore the ramifications of an idea they are not sure they believe, or that what a person says does not always indicate who a person is at their core.
Category No. 2 is harder to manage. Best I can to is to ask you to imagine each post prefaced with: “My dear friends, even I may not wholeheartedly believe everything I say here, and if anything I say hurts you or makes you angry, I’m sorry. I meant nothing personal, and I care for you just as much as I did before.”
Category No. 3 is the killer.
- I Am A Pathetic Writer/No One Cares What I Think/I Write Like An Eighth-Grader/I Should Never Have Posted That.
Fear of failure. Fear of ridicule. Fear of hurtful comments. Fear of trolls. Fear of things I haven’t even thought of yet. Fear fear fear fear fear.
I can’t control Category No. 3. I can only say screw it. If not now, when? Il faut foncer.
Here’s to 2020.
Categories: Blogging