Writing

Editor’s Note- This will show on both WordPress and Medium

Some of you know there is a version of this blog on Medium/Wordpress and follow me in both places. If you have tried to keep up than you also know I haven’t updated Medium in forever and that I have slowed down on the updates here.

You can blame that upon life having gotten busier and my having had to become more judicious about where I spend my time.

You can also say I have wrestled with which one provides the bigger bang for my buck so to speak. In concept Medium feels like it is the bigger platform based upon the 1000 followers it says I have there.

But that doesn’t mean that it really is bigger or that part or all of those 1000 are actively looking for my posts. Hell, most have probably forgotten I exist as it has been more than a year or two since I last updated there.

In concept some of you subscribe and or follow me in both places so you know that I haven’t fallen off of the earth but I really don’t know how big or small that number is.

I also know very few of you have reached out to ask about my silence. That is ok,  we’re all busy and I haven’t reached out to people I read on the regular to find out why they stopped production.

So don’t take that as a passive aggressive remark to encourage connection or comments. It is not, it is an observation.

I never stop writing, though I have stopped updating some of the places I used to be most active in. Writing is such a big part of who I am I don’t think I could give it up.

But I could absolutely take it all offline and or adjust as I have done.

What I can’t easily do is let go of this place because the mighty JackB is what kept me going during some very hard times. It is what kept me from losing my mind and losing hope.

It is a place that once had a very large and very active community. At one point it certainly was larger than the 1000 followers Medium says I have.

This was part of what I consider to be the golden age of blogging and that fills my heart with joy. So many good memories.

Part of why Medium didn’t take off for me is because I was spread too thin and you have to work to build your community. You have to nurture it and give it love/attention.

I didn’t do as good a job at that as I could have. If I had seen more activity there I might have focused on building and nurturing, but I didn’t.

There is so much content out there now I think we’re all swamped and overrun with beeps, buzzes, whistles and newsletters jockeying for our attention.

That impacts all of us, myself included.

Sometimes I haven’t published a post because I haven’t felt like the content merited being given that exposure.

But it never meant I wasn’t writing because that doesn’t happen. If you don’t keep your pencil sharp you grow rusty and so I keep going…always.

So I look at my time and consider what I have to say alongside of what I want to share and ask if I am writing something worth reading or doing something worth writing.

Twelve years ago I sat on a balcony 50 or so miles away from here imagining what the future would look like.

I had attended a celebration at The Keg in Fort Worth followed by an after party that gave me an idea for what things could look like down the road.

Twelve years later some of what I imagined has come to pass and some of it seems improbable if not impossible. Can’t tell you if that is the best or worst outcome because you can’t see the future with the sort of clarity one might want or at least I cannot.

People who swore they would be part of my life forever have chosen to walk upon other paths and I have let them go. Spent lots of time trying to chase and or carry them but they didn’t want that. They gave up on the good, the beautiful and I am sure did so because they convinced themselves there was ugly.

Can’t say ugly wasn’t there and that challenges didn’t exist because you find those things in life. Some people choose to walk with you through the fire and to take on the good and the bad.

Sometimes they choose to turn their backs on those who were always there for them. That is a them issue and not a me issue.

I can’t make anyone do anything. It was disturbing, disappointing and hurtful, but that is how it goes sometimes. It is there choice and their loss.

Truth

Been involved in what feels like an endless stream of conversations about what truth is and isn’t. It is exhausting to be constantly engaged in such things but it seems to be par for the course now. If it is not MAGA repeating 47’s endless lies it is Blue MAGA lying about Israel, Zionism and Judaism.

I keep telling myself this too shall pass but it feels like it is taking extra long time for such a thing to happen.

It is problematic to see so many adopt this position of truth being malleable based upon their tribal definition of what the facts are.

It is a dangerous way to go about life because some facts aren’t open to interpretation or adjustment. That particular statement irks me more than I can tell you because it is a pandora’s box of nonsense but there is a philosophical case that could be applied.

But I am not going to take that on here, not now and maybe not ever.

Probably something SQ and I might have discussed but she is on her walkabout and may not find me because I am no longer standing in the places and spaces I once occupied.

Makes me sad to say it but again that is life and sometimes you have to do your own thing for a bit or a lifetime. One never knows.

Going to wrap this up with a link to The New Normal so I can use it as a reference point for something different later on.

Will probably post this on Facebook just to see if it gets any traction. I doubt it, but sometimes I like to test things out.

If my Gmail is to be trusted I purchased the current theme of this blog almost eight years ago.

Given that I don’t know when I will change it again I ought to say it is Myth by Meanthemes. That may or not be familiar to the readers but should I read this post again at some future date it will provide context.

I changed because I got word the old ‘new’ theme was updated and figured I was ready for a new look here again.

Don’t know if it will increase the frequency of my posting but don’t know it won’t either. This current phase is the slowest it has ever been and given that I used to update multiple times a day throughout the week it really has been slow.

Quantity doesn’t always reflect quality and though I feel the overall production has been solid it is time to reflect, reframe and refocus.

The biggest challenge isn’t finding things to write about but time and determining where to prioritize what I have.

Given I still have multiple blogs that time is divided further so the question becomes what provides me the biggest return.

Not in a financial sense, but in satisfaction.

Because each of the blogs is different, but not all give the same oomph.

So now I reflect and that provides it is own satisfaction.