Chris Heuer's Insytes

Been noticing a recurring problem that I have been struggling against – it may be tied tied to my mood and varying levels of certainty/uncertainty, but that could just be ancillary or more effect instead of cause. I have always had this problem with writing (waiting for the right mood to strike), so I suppose that blogging is just making me deal with it more often and more directly. The past 10 days since BrainJams Berkeley have seen only a handful of blog posts that I published, along with a dozen others that are still sitting here in various embryonic states (a few simple notes, a nearly complete post, a hand full of open tabs awaiting commentary, a stream of consciousness over 7 pages of a word doc that needs to be ripped apart and rebuilt and even a bunch of thoughts that should be made into blog posts but I have not even written anything on because I am so behind with the others)

Sometimes I am so in the flow of an idea that I just need to get it out right away, so I sit down, put fingers to keyboard, and an hour or so later some really long blog post with deep insights has been published. Other times, I go back and forth on a wide array of thoughts that are related in some complex manner and never reach any degree of what could be called understandable by regular humans, so the posts just sit there. It is hugely frustrating for me and at various points in my past has overwhelmed me so much that I pretty much shut down. Thankfully, I have not reached that point and probably won’t again, but it certainly ‘feels’ like one of those times again so I am here being reflective, trying to work this out intellectually and emotionally.

The reality is that to blog or not to blog is really a function of my available time, and lately there has not bee all that much time left after the top priorities get handled. Or at least, I am still trying to keep my life in balance as best as I can and trying to working less than 80 hours hours each week eventhough there is always something more that needs my attention. Perhaps I need to shift my balance a bit, but I hope not. I generally like the way things have been going lately personally and professionally and hope it continues in the same direction. Of course, there is the little matter of making some big decisions about the future of BrainJams as well as my professional consulting life, but I don’t feel put off by those decisions, just still uncertain as to which course of action I should take, and which of the great possibilities deserve my complete focus.

Then of course there is the matter of the blog feeling as if it is the equivalent of ‘one hand clapping’. As a firmly entrenched member of the M-List Blogger Core, I don’t write to get juiced by how popular the blog is, though I do monitor the traffic to see who if anyone might be linking to me. I write the blog hoping that what I have to say is considered as part of the broader conversation – or more specifically, that some of my ideas seeking feedback directly, do get that feedback from whoever might be reading. So when I post on the future of BrainJams, I hope that someone other than my fiance might have something meaningful to contribute. Then again, I might be too concerned with what other people think at this point and should perhaps just invest more time and energy as the leader of an organization rather than thinking like a participant of a community. Hmmmmmmm

So what to do with the blog posts that are in process? Well, I guess I can always edit them later, so I might as well start kicking them out this afternoon/evening and see where they take us…