The summer I worked as a guide at the Edvard Grieg museum at Troldhaugen I lost every need for social contact. Every single day between 1000 and 1500 tourists visited the museum, and because of the way the museum was set up, I smiled to every one of them, reminding them to be careful because the house was fragile, chatting with many about their journeys and of course telling them about Edvard and Nina Grieg.
When I got home at night I was exhausted. I wanted to be alone. My usual love for people was completely drained by the intense social contact of the day.
Blogging feels a bit like that to me now. My working life is so filled with people, students, meetings, administrative needs and emails with small tasks that must be attended to that there is no room for blogging. Blogging requires calm enough to think.
Of course, blogging also creates space and time in which to think. Right now, though, I feel as though I’m already doing enough of my thinking in public.
I’ve tried writing an essay about all this. It’ll be published later this year, in Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacob’s anthology The Uses of Blogs. I’m not entirely happy with the essay, but it’s a try at figuring this out, anyway – and the other essays in the book look very promising.
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Francois Lachance
Jill,
I was just thinking the other day about how certain bloggers go through cycles where what they post is mainly words and then at other times what they post is mainly images and few have even been known to podcast for periods of time. This just to suggest that the phenomenon that you identify may have less to do with the public/private organisation of space and more to do with intelligent people wanting to exercise a different aspect of their repertoire. Just a thought expressed in words and translatable to a sound sequence or image 🙂
JosÈ Angel
Do we get to read the paper on your website? (Puh-leese…! Do blog that.)
Mum
This post took me hypering to the guide post – I’d forgotten how powerful & beautiful that post was. I can understand that guiding left you drained ….
Jill
FranÁois, thanks for the reminder. Maybe I’ll start expressing something completely different here. And the paper? I think the agreement I signed said I could publish it here, but honestly, for some reason I’m a little reticent about this particuar paper. Wil have to think about it… Mum, thanks 🙂
Trevor Cook's other blog
Is blogging less the latest trend?
Link: jill/txt ? i?m blogging less. It’s not about burnout or block, its about blogging fitting into your life and not your life fitting into blogging.
MC
Hi Jill,
I’m looking forward to your chapter (I’ve got a chapter in the book too) and agree that blogs tend to reflect the cycles of their authors.
I’ve also been having a break from blogging but for different reasons – working so hard onscreen all day finishing an article (on blogging) a book and a grant application has made me physically too tired to blog. When I finish work I just want to be sooo far away from my computer, I crave the amount of sociality you’ve been having!
Jill
Yes, the getting away from my computer is a major issue too… Though hm, somehow that generally doesn’t keep me away from World of Warcraft 😉