why bother?
We're having a tough time around here for a few different reasons, so last week I made a deliberate decision not to write, in order to carve out some time for other activities. Including, but not limited to, sleeping. In a way it would be easy to keep up the hiatus indefinitely, not least because I'm very aware that my words here don't command a particularly wide audience. Really, if I stopped writing at all I don't think anyone would mind, or even notice, except maybe my mother—and I talk to her on the phone. But I actually have another audience in mind most times I sit down to write after everything else is done at a time I'd much rather be asleep: my future self.
I'm not particularly successful by any conventional definition, which doesn't really bother me. But I do put some energy into leading the kind of life I want to lead, and particularly—in this stage of life—in doing fun and worthwhile things with the boys. And I wonder if, ten or even two years later, I'd remember what was going on this spring if I didn't write it down. Sure, there'd be general recollections, but the details are hard work, and it seems a shame not to remember them. So all that is to say: most of the time, this blog—what I write in it—isn't a project itself, but rather it's a recording of the real project, which is life. So that's why I bother to write. Why you're bothering to read is another question entirely... hopefully I'm at least a little bit entertaining from time to time!
comments
Dan, I love your writing. Don't ever stop even when fatigue has you down. I remember youth and young children and how you can forget that you are valuable as are your wonderful writings. I envy you the joy you are having with those three wonders you are raising. Stick with it. I need you to show me in my old age what wonderful parenting is all about.
Thanks for the encouragement!