Posts Tagged: blogging
Trying to Re-Engage
No, the photo is not stretched horizontally. That’s just how they used to make ’em. And no, I didn’t pump up the saturation at all. Sometimes the light just does that. I don’t know why.
I fall further and further behind in dealing with my photographs. This, despite the fact that I am shooting far fewer photos lately. Of course, both of these facts are related to starting a new job and feeling the pressure of getting work done. Few walks around the neighborhood when I’m at work, bringing work home on occasion, studying up a bit, and various other tasks and projects make it difficult to do much writing or photography. For the last month or more, I’ve pulled some really late nights doing everything from getting taxes done to a spectacular, last-minute, marathon sprint to complete online traffic school. The late nights make me slower at work, which makes me bring work home, which leads to late nights, which,…
I believe, and I hope, the worst of it is now passed.
Similarly, I am also fabulously behind on both this daily post to the blog, and the project 365 group on flickr. I continue to feel a bit torn about both of these projects. I want to do both everyday. I really do. I want to be able to say I did it, and I want have the resulting output from participating in projects like these. But on the other hand, I think that it does not often make for very good or interesting results if one is always pressed for time. Does it make sense to just take a picture of anything at all and throw it up there just to meet the obligation to post something everyday? Does one get better by doing that? Does it make sense to write a few sentences in the most dry and mechanical way just to meet the arbitrary goal? I think that if one isn’t taking time to think about it, or attempt to practice a particular kind of shot, or whatever, then one is not communicating anything or improving one’s skills.
As for photos, since there is plenty of work to do catching up on processing and archiving photos already taken, I am going to solidly re-commit to uploading something everyday, but the photo will not necessarily have been taken on that day. I took this photo on April 29th, but posted it to the group for the 28th. I had nothing on the 28th. Zero. And yet, I got a handful of fun shots on the 29th. Some days are just like that. And while there will be a photo representing each day, there may be multiple photos in my submission to the group taken on the same day. That’s a clear violation of the group rules, but it’s the only way to keep with it at this point. And I’d rather put up photos I actually like than put up photos taken on 365 different days but that I mostly hate.
As far as the blog goes, I hope to get back at it and write about something everyday–about something other than why I’m not writing.
Introduction to falling behind
Yes, I recognize that I’m now woefully behind in this post-a-day project. But it is not really my fault; forces beyond my control are conspiring against me. They weigh on me and burden me until I crumple down into a heap of my own laziness. (The laziness is beyond my control, too, of course.) These are not garden-variety forces of distraction and procrastination, like say, a hangnail on my typing finger, or simply beautiful beach weather. Not at all. Each of these complex and weighty forces deserves its own explanation that could stand alone in a separate post. And now that I type it, I see I have what looks like a great strategy for squeaking out some more posts! With that strategy in hand, I’ll do little more than enumerate the reasons why I haven’t written. And in the by-and-by, I’ll write about why I’m not writing.
- Las Vegas
- Computer problems
- Parenting
- American politics
- Family emergencies
- Neurotic belief that I must somehow learn about some 10 different computer programming technologies all at once.
- World events
There’s no particular order to this list, just like in my actual life. Although co-incidentally, the first item on the list marked the beginning of the end for my fidelity to the Commitment. There’s nothing like going on vacation to break the routine, get you out of the habit, and make getting back to work impossibly distasteful. Even if it’s only for a couple of days.
And so it was with the Las Vegas trip. Before the trip, the thought of completely failing to post for a day was just inconceivable. It may have been late, it may have been typo-ridden and incomprehensible, it may have been stupid and a sham topic just to get the post up, but by Dog, it was going to get done. Then, once I actually completely failed to deliver just once, just that first time, then it became conceivable. I thought to myself, “I missed a day and,…and… nothing happened.” And then after that, with each day that goes by it is SO MUCH easier to ignore the nagging little voice telling me that I made this Commitment I need to fulfill no matter what’s happened or who’s died.
I even brought my laptop with me to Vegas with the idea of continuing to write. I almost sort of did. I think I got one post up. But then,… well, I’d say more about what might have gone wrong with that plan, but you know what they say about what happens in Vegas. So, let’s leave it at that for the moment. And we’ll see if I can get around to explaining any of these other crippling roadblocks to self-realization through blogging.
You must be logged in to post a comment.