Wednesday, August 9, 2017

City Blog


Writing a blog is like raising a really big dog in the city. It's expensive -- in time if not in money -- and to do it right takes a lot of feeding and watering. And there's a lot of shit to deal with.

But that doesn't stop people from raising really big dogs in the city, and it doesn't stop people from writing blogs. That's me -- raising a blog in the city.

Sometimes I'm not a very good blog owner, though. I don't feed it. I don't water it. I don't take it for a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes that bothers me and I want to do better. I want to write more. At other times, I'm distracted by whatever shiny object is in front of me at the moment, and I don't care so much about showing up here.

Taoism teaches me not to worry about these shifting patterns of writing and not writing. The blog will write itself if I just let it. Wu wei, as Lao-tzu would put it. But this is not always easy to do. I come from a hardy stock of native worriers, so letting go of worry is as much a problem as it is a practice for me.

Still, here it is. Another blog post, blooming like a day lily in an alley of Tao.



3 comments:

Galen Pearl said...

I hear you! When I was writing my first blog, I was much more active in blogworld. With the one I'm writing now, I promised myself that I would take it a post at a time, trying to avoid the shoulds. I will write or I won't. People will read it or they won't.

Always happy to see a post from you.

S0phia Inkpen said...

Letting go is a difficult lesson to learn, I am still learning it. The days I have learned they usually go easier. The days I have unlearned it are usually the more difficult ones.

Painting Demos/Observations and Musings by Brian Rice said...

I think of a blog as being like an email or even snail mail. Its not like the instant messaging on most social media or the need to respond immediately to a text. I like the pace of the blogger. None of us have something to share at all times. Often periods of silence are times of learning and teaching. Then after we have realized something we may want to share it, or not. I like reading your thoughts HK , post when you can.