Tuesday, February 18, 2014

20140218.0731

As I knew that I would be busy over the past weekend, I wrote several posts ahead of time and scheduled them to update automatically.  In one sense, it worked well; I was able to have material pop out while freeing up my time to attend to other matters of some importance.  The writing does not stand out as being produced and distributed in any unusual way--in part because a great many people do such things--and it has allowed me to maintain at least the appearance of writing consistently across the days.  So I am not displeased with the evident results of having scheduled posts ahead of time.

That is not to say that I am entirely pleased, however.  There is one sense in which my setting up posts for later publication very much displeases me: doing so makes it easy for me not to spend time writing each day.  After all, one of the reasons that I maintain this blog, that I have made the effort to do so in earnest since the end of April 2013, is to give myself daily or near-daily practice in writing, and in writing such that people other than myself can read it.  (I have kept a journal more or less regularly for many years now, but only I ever look at it--which is probably for the best.  Too, my handwriting is...not good, so that typing is much to be preferred.)  The practice has helped me to write in a way I hope is better (with "better" being "more easily read by non-specialist audiences" as much as anything else), more freely, and more quickly.  It has also served as a way for me to get my mind working in the morning, as the exercise I have noted before.  And as with physical exercise, I am able to feel the difference in my performance when I miss a day.  (The idea gives me pause at going back to the gym or to the dojo.  I have been away for a while.  I will have lost much.)

Returning to daily writing yesterday after more or less taking the weekend off from it was difficult.  My thoughts were sluggish, and even when they got moving, they did not move well.  I was finally able to come up to speed and to something like my usual level of performance, but it took a while, and the lag managed to affect other people than myself.  (My job is one of mental effort and service to others thereby.  When I am not at my peak, I cannot help them reach their own.)  It was decidedly annoying, the more so because I was aware of it (can those unaware really be annoyed?), and so I think that I will not be doing so much writing ahead--at least not in this webspace.  There are other venues which will reward my doing so, certainly, and I need to attend to them.  But in this, I need to write daily.  I simply do not do well to do otherwise.

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