Publish or Perish

Sometimes (like now) I find myself trying to come up with a blog post just because it seems like it's time. It's been a while since the last one. I don't have anything in particular to go on about. It just seems like it's time. Why is that, I wonder?

I don't have to do this. It's not like my livelihood depends on it, or there is information only I can convey, or anybody cares whether I write anything or not. I'm not trying to amuse or educate or entertain an audience because, aside from a handful of blogger buddies, I don't have one. My day-to-day routine is no more interesting than anybody else's. I don't confront and surmount, or fail to surmount, heroic challenges. I can't share deep philosophical insights, because I don't have any. I don't know the solution to anyone else's problems. Everyone around here knows what the weather has been like, and nobody else cares. I don't need the discipline of writing everyday. Been there, done that. Sometimes I'm just doing it for me, because trying to write about a thing can be a good way to sort through what I really think about it. I get that. But is there any point in trying to scratch together a post when I really don't have anything in mind to write about?

For the past, oh, 30 years or so, I've always had a deadline. Always. Sometimes more than one. While it's never been literally Publish or Perish, it has usually been Publish or Something Really Bad Is Going to Happen. There has always been a date by which I had to have something ready to publish. It's not always imminent, huge, looming, taking precedence over everything else, blotting out the sun. But it's always been there.

Now it's kind of fun to not post anything, because I don't have to.

Sometimes sitting down and writing just because I ought to turns up some unexpected things.

Today it didn't.