20131229.0920

As a student of the academic humanities, I have many writing projects that need to be completed.  Waiting for my attention is one paper I have already committed to write, continued work on the revision of my dissertation, three essays of varying levels of academic intensity, blog entries here and in two other webspaces, several creative pieces, my personal journal, an academic book independent of my dissertation, and a number of funding and job applications.  Each will need several pages of writing at the very least, and although I have at times been able to compose quickly, I am not always so fortunate as to be able to churn our thirty pages in a day.  (When I am, I pay for it in pain; doing to myself what I must to be thus productive has side effects that are...uncomfortable.)

Given this, it might be asked why I spend my time on such "lesser" projects as this blog and other blogs, or on my personal journal.  I have admittedly neglected each in the past, sometimes for sustained stretches.  How sporadic were my posts to this webspace before May of this year?  And I have fared less well in my other "minor" projects, certainly.  So it makes sense that, if I have much writing to do and have demonstrated that I can set aside some in favor of other work, that I ought perhaps to stand aside from more...humble pieces in the interest of devoting my attention to the more...important pieces (insofar as people regard work in the academic humanities as "important," although they should).

Such thoughts assume, however, that there are only so many words to be said, that my language is a finite resource and that there are only so many words that can pour out of me.  My parents can assure you that this is not true, I think, and that it has not been since I learned to speak.  While the length of the day and the demands of my body may limit the size of the spigot, the tank which it drains has not been sounded; it is as the cup Þorr raises in the halls of Utgard-Loki, perhaps.  It is not the case that my spending words in such venues as this drains me of words to use on other projects; to continue with water, they are the drops sprayed out that fall on other plants than the flowers, and the garden is still enriched by them.

Another image to use, perhaps, is that of exercise.  Is it not the case for those who wish to exert their bodies that they stretch themselves beforehand, thinking thereby to minimize injury and enhance their performance?  Why, then, would it not be the case that those who work with their minds would stretch them through such activities as brief bits of writing?  Writing is made easier by doing more of it, not harder, so the time I spend in putting together blog posts and journal entries is not wasted from the other, "greater" projects; it is training and practice so that I can do that part of The Work better.  And that is a thing to be valued.