BLOG FATIGUE

Glenn Reynolds does an amazing job but he is still mortal, and I’m delighted he’s decided to take things a little less strenuously in the near future. He’s too valuable to be lost to exhaustion. But he raises an interesting question about blogging that deserves a little scrutiny. It can become grueling. I just checked how many words I have written for the blog this year and it’s already approaching 200,000 words. If I wrote four books in five months, I’d rightly give myself a vacation. And I’d be rolling in it. But, as it is, I’m already figuring out what to say for tomorrow’s blog, absorbing the news in this terribly grueling time, and writing (last week) five separate columns/reviews. And I’ve been at this now for almost four years – almost every day. I begin to wonder what the half-life of a blogger is. It doesn’t seem to have affected my health (the hernia wasn’t from typing) and my latest bloodwork was good enough to keep me off HIV meds for another few months, at least. (This June, it will be three years since I took any medications at all. My immune system has not declined in that period and the virus has barely rebounded. A miracle of sorts, which I attribute entirely to my mother’s prayers). But life suffers – along with relationships, being able to drink after 8 pm, exercize and reading for – imagine this – pleasure. At this point, the reason for blogging has gotten a little lost. And then I realize we are at war. And I realize my own pathetic part in it is trying to think about it, fight it with words, and that this blog is a small part of that wider effort. At some point, I will have to give it up or take a long break. But when that is, I’m not so sure.