Here’s the thing…

It’s a little hard to get motivated to post these days. It always has been, of course. That’s no secret, and if you’ve never heard me say it, you’ve probably figured it out.

I know it seems odd to have a blog when I never feel like writing, but I’m compelled to maintain one. I’m just not all that compelled to actually post anything. To me that’s better than posting about nothing all the time, but only marginally.

There was a time when I used to do creative things because I enjoyed them. It didn’t have to be something useful and I didn’t even have to be good at it. I used to write and draw (and Lord knows I wasn’t any good at drawing), and I taught myself Photoshop and HTML and I can’t even remember what else. I used to put together my own computers and play video games, and it was all fun.

Then, at some point along the way, it stopped being fun. I got tired of drawing, then tired of writing, and eventually I got tired of the rest of it, too. It happened so gradually I didn’t even realize it, but now I look back over the better part of a decade and realize that somehow practically everything I used to enjoy had become a chore.

So now I do creative things as therapy. My creative muscles have atrophied and my hope is that a regimen of exercise is my way to get them back. My fear is that they’re gone for good. That’s a scary idea because being creative is important to me. On some level I’ve known that for a while, even though I’ve only been able to articulate it in recent years. Back when I started my first blog, the idea wasn’t to exercise my flagging creativity, but that’s the effect it had all the same.

Maintaining this blog, my participation in National Novel Writing Month a few years back, and this past year with my Year In Pictures project… All attempts to keep the torch lit.

The thing is, most of the time I don’t enjoy it. I enjoy having done it but not doing it. My fervent hope is that if I can find the right thing, something will click and start enjoying myself again. But right now, not so much.

But I’m not going to quit. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, “If you don’t like your job, you don’t quit. You just go in to work every day and do it half assed.”

And I told you all that so I can tell you this.

The other thing is that if I’m not doing something “useful,” then I don’t feel like doing anything. It’s not like I necessarily feel like doing the useful stuff, either, but we all know some things just have to be done.

Basically, and I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining here (even though I am), I’m tired all the time. Tired literally and figuratively. My sleep schedule is completely at odds with my work/life schedule but that’s not the problem. It certainly doesn’t help, but I think it’s more of a symptom than the problem. As to what the problem is, who the hell knows, but I’m working on it.

So when I have some time to myself, often the last thing I feel like doing is a chore, much less a chore I made up completely for myself and which has no meaning for anybody but me. Especially when, after having done it, I don’t feel any different anyway. As you can imagine, it’s often the case that “nothing” is exactly what I end up doing.

But every once in a while the stuff in my head reaches critical mass, and then we get what you see here.

What am I trying to say? I don’t even know, really. I should be in bed already, but of course I’m not all that sleepy. Tired, but not sleepy. That’s usually how it seems to work.

Your natural and correct reaction to this is probably “so do something about it” and I just want to assure you that I am, in more ways than I’ve talked about here. But I don’t know if I’m up to talking about that just yet.

Anyway, it’s time I hit the sack. So I’ll say “goodnight,” even though I’m sure most of you will read this in the morning

And yes, I know I promised you a “year in review” post. All I can say is that it’s coming, and it’ll get here when it gets here.