20190831.0430

If it is the case that I might be well served by being further out of the classroom than I have been these past years, it is not the case that I should stop doing the kind of researched writing that I have enjoyed doing for quite some time. For if it is the case that there is joy in piecing things together and figuring out new things from doing so, it is also the case that doing the work of compiling such writing as I flatter myself I've done focuses my attentions in that regard. And it is a joy that harms none in itself, so it is a pleasure that may be indulged more than most others that could be named.
I continue to have ideas for things to treat, ideas for papers to write and either to post to one of the several webspaces I maintain or to present in an upper Midwestern springtime or some such thing. One proceeds from yesterday's discussion; I saw a connection between a couple of things that I might explicate and bring out for others to see, as well. Others come from emails I get--not the proverbial list of writing prompts (though there are such things, as I am well aware), but instead from ideas sparked by reading one newsletter or another I receive at odd intervals. Still others emerge from sources less clear to me as I move ahead with addressing them. Sometimes they work well. Sometimes they do not. But even in finding that they don't, there's something of value, to be sure, and I am glad to have it.
Maybe that is part of why I continue to write in my journal and in this webspace, as well as in the others I maintain. In the others, I present more or less developed ideas. In this and in the journal, I make no such pretense; here and there, I play with ideas, writing to generate them in the model I was taught in graduate school and which I was obliged to teach then (and which I have not done terribly well in doing, I remain convinced). I am not certain that it is enough reason to maintain the separate media, not sure it justifies my continued efforts in the different areas. For now, though, I will keep doing as I have been doing, and I'll be moving into something else here beginning tomorrow--it will be a new month, after all, and I tend to move around from month to month in this webspace, as I have shown.
What I will take up tomorrow, I am not certain. I think I probably need to return to some of the older things I've done, use them to gather myself as I move ahead into a new line of work and all. There are some things I'd like to try, too, and it will be good to have the opportunity to address myself to them, if only for a time.