So things have been pretty dark over here. There are several reasons for this–some of them good reasons, some of them dumb and bad. The first is that I spent most of the year trying to decide if I should even blog. I’m into year six or thereabouts of my justly earned midlife crisis and I just haven’t been able to figure out what to do with myself. Certainly, having a six-year midlife crisis is probably a little bit chichi email class. But also, it’s not my fault. It is the result of living, as Mary Harrington so beautifully explains, in the sort of world in which we live.
So anyway, when I finally landed on the side of ‘Yes, don’t overthink it, just blog,’ I could neither wake up in the small hours that heretofore was my writing time nor come up with anything to say. This is not to say that there are not a lot of interesting subjects, but most of them take some thinking out. The era of covid has wearied me for the treadmill of the daily post. There is nothing funny on Vice or Buzzfeed. Everything is terrible. I can’t scroll and scroll and scroll looking for fodder. It’s not good for me. I have to read some books and stuff like that.
Moreso, I decided at some point in the summer not to follow the wide road and start a Substack. I debated about this for a long time. I really wanted to start one where I went line by line through all books of the last two years that I have particularly hated. One long, protracted Fisk as it were. But the more I thought about it, the more I admitted to myself that I would not have time to follow through. I would make a lot of promises to the internet that I would not be able to keep. Believe me, admitting such a thing was painful. I had to lie back on my chaise lounge in a virtual faint reading Hercule Poirot stories and eating cheese in order to cope. Instead, I’ve decided to spend more of my serious writing time over at Stand Firm. Stand Firm is free for everyone to read and there are no advertisements. I would love to make money from writing, but the amount of time and energy it would take for me to pursue the dream of earning enough for a measly cup of overpriced coffee does not seem to be a good use of my limited abilities. So, go over there and read a lot of the free writing I’m going to do out of the goodness and generosity of my being. But also, if you really want to pay for writing (as you should do) subscribe to the Christian Research Journal for early access to online articles as well as the print version. Matt and I both turn out the occasional piece, and there is a lot of brilliant writing over there.
Finally, the reason things have been so quiet is that soon as I really decided to blog again, I proceeded to lose multiple blog posts in the bowels of my computer. So that’s super fun.
The main thing, though, is that today is St. Nicholas Day. And so here, yet again, is the podcast I did with Melanie. Give it a listen and have a lovely day!
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