And a time to pluck up

For the third time, now, I am thinking about ending my blogging run. That's a pretty good sign that it's time to pull the plug. I won't shut 'er down just yet, but I may or may not be back for a while.

I have two posts out there more than half-finished, and I don't want to work on either of them. That's a pretty good sign that it's time to pull the plug.

I can no longer blog from work in any effective way. I can write posts after some annoying hoop jumping, but I cannot get out and comment on any of ya'lls blogs the way I'd like. And once I lost that, I lost the sense of community. So, now my blogging just feels like me expounding on things I think I'm smart about. Only I don't like hearing the sound of my own voice all that much. If I'm not part of a community, I don't want to play at all. Seriously, if I had 100 readers out here, and I didn't feel like we depended on each other, I'd sign off. Rather, I am signing off. When I blog these days, I feel alone. And that's a pretty good sign it's time to pull the plug.

Some people blog for themselves. I don't even know what that means. I blog for people, or I don't blog at all. And I don't blog to educate, but to exchange. And now that I feel so unplugged, I've lost any sense of the profit of putting my weird ideas out here.

Now, this may all be circumstance-based. If it is, then I will explain what happened and show up again. These last two months have been among the most draining I can recall, and none of it is blog material. I have surrounded myself with four or five people I know face-to-face, and the energy I would put into writing posts is now going into those interactions.

This blog has always been the place that I floated my fondest fancies, and found foils to fell my foibles. I learned a LOT from ya'll, and a lot of it hard to welcome at first. I really am a pretty arrogant cuss, and like to think of myself as right pretty much all the time. You always provided a valuable corrective to my hubris. Some day, I may have an original idea again, and need someone to look it over from other angles. When that happens, you can count on me to look ya'll up again.

Today, original thoughts are a million miles away from me, though.

So, this is my last post for at least a week. Probably a little longer.

Thank you for all the support.

Codepoke