Why would I stop pubbing this blog? Because it costs money and I can send it out as a newsletter digest, once a week to the N people who want to read it, for free. I need to reduce expenditures, especially those nibbly, come-out-of-your-bank-account-quietly-month-after-month expenditures, because harder times yet are coming and the world is shifting again.
I’m tired of it. I have said all I’m going to about any of the things that I find important and all the new things look like a subset of the old things, only this time they’re 33% microfibres and 67% self-involvement. Everything is shiny until you scuff it. I’m tired of shouting into the void. I’m tired of it being an increasingly onerous duty and an increasingly obvious failure to connect. I’m tired of its vanity and its assumptions. I’ve never expected anyone else to care that much, and I’ve finally caught up to the rest of the world.
I know that what I do (all of it, from stand-up to kid’s songs) isn’t something monetizable and I knew it when I first started to spend money on it. Even so, I look at the millions of words I’ve written and see nothing of lasting interest or value to the larger world. To certain very dear, delightful people, yes, and to myself, yes, no question. But it doesn’t have to be in this format, and probably never should have been. It’s a hobby and should be private.
This also means that John’s memorial site will be coming down. I will try to get someone else to take that on but it may not happen. Bitrot, folks. ‘sgonna happen anyway, may as well try to roll with it.
And that’s why. You were right pOp, you were always right.
It’s not disabling ‘depression’ making me do this. (I thought, okay, I’ll fill out a depression questionnaire. Here’s my result: Use clinical judgment about treatment, based on patient’s duration of symptoms and functional impairment. Yes I answered honestly. Not ready for meds I reckon.) I’m not giving up because of any fanciful (or genuine) feelings of self-harm because I haven’t had those feelings in more than a decade and I have a much easier time fending them off now that I have grandchildren – it’s caution. Other factors feed in, but they aren’t for public consumption for the same reason I don’t post my street address.
I leave you with one of the people who did her best to face down Hitler’s fascism:
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.” –– Sophie Scholl
