Feeling blogged out? UPDATED

Amba wonders if some bloggers are feeling blogged out?

A bunch of us seem to have gone blooey all at once, as if responding helplessly to some shift in the heavens, or in the collective unconscious. The cultural wavefront has moved on, but whither? Twitter feels transitional, somehow. But blogging just seems to have peaked and ebbed . . . to have reached a saturation point, or point of diminishing returns. Maybe after several years of emptying out our minds daily (like chamber pots?) a lot of us are running out of things to say, or feel in danger of repeating ourselves. Maybe, with the exception of those blogs that have broken through — become established institutions in their niches, sustained by massive rewards, expectations, and inertial momentum — a lot of us just couldn’t keep up the effort any longer. Myself, I felt right on the borderline between private and public: blogging was no longer something I was doing just for myself, and so there was guilt and sorrow involved in (mostly) quitting. But I plum ran out of gas. (A gasbag without gas?)

She wonders if Ann Althouse first sensed the blooeys, and looks at the work-to-payback ratio of blogging. You’ll want to go read it.

Am I blogged out? Yes and no. I recently had a big-time professional author-type tell me to “stop writing for free.”

Well, I’d love to get paid for everything I write but chances are even if I were, I’d still be blogging about something because I’m an opinionated puss. And maybe that’s the difference between burning out and not. If you’re blogging for anything more than love of throwing your opinion down, if you’re obsessing on your sitemeter numbers, eventually this thing will begin to feel like work, and you will begin to feel harassed, burned out and underloved.

On the other hand, I keep trying to focus more on faith issues, and still I find myself writing about politics, even though I am sure it is not good for me or my soul, and it makes me crotchety to Joseph Marshall, when really, I want to go back and forth with him about Buddhism and Christianity, and the practice of contemplation.

Some one asked me – I think it was Jane Hanson on the last episode of In the Arena, and that’s still not online – about my desire to pull away from politics. I think I paraphrased Michael Corleone in Godfather III; whenever I think I’m out, it sucks me back in. But there is, increasingly, a sense that both left and right are far off the rails. It almost feels like whether you’re liberal or conservative, if you’re not in a constant state of umbrage-taking hysteria and high dudgeon, you’re not “doing it right.”

I say, screw that. I can’t help thinking that when everyone is so very enthralled to the age and hyperventilating, it means we’re all caught in an illusion, and our vehement enthrallment is part of the misdirection. When I get emails complaining that I’m “not angry enough” whatever the issue, it does not spur me on to greater passion. It just annoys me.

Perhaps some of what Amba is describing is simply exhaustion following what was an almost surreal, two-year presidential campaign and historic inaugural. Perhaps the blogosphere was able to coast on some residual electoral fumes, but those are spent, and all we have to write about now are the same old things; lying politicians, expedient politicians, the decline of journalism, and how that decline is assisting in the takeover of American industries by a government with a very big appetite. For more thoughts on the death of journalism and a comparison in how old media operates vs alternative media, Melissa Clothier has the goods.

Btw, while the collapse of American journalism is sadly moldy news, the “takeover of American industries” is pretty new; it’s just exhausting to write about, isn’t it?

I’m not tired of blogging; but I do try to take Sundays off, now, and part of Saturday. I wish I had the energy and focus of, say, Michelle Malkin or Ed Morrissey, but there is a reason why they’re ‘net superstars and I’m not.

Meanwhile, the site re-do seems to have been stalled. Blogging will be light today, in hopes that I won’t be in the way of anything. BUT…if the sitepage seems unchanged for too long, try a hard reload (shift and refresh simultaneously).

Some random links:
The President: will continue to speak moderately and act immoderately. Whatever happened to “actions speak louder than words, just word?”
MoDo plagarizes: And uses Pelosi-esque excuse. Part of the “smart” crowd at the “cool” table in the high school lunchroom.
Kathryn Jean Lopez hearts The Donald.
Wall Street Journal: Does elementary math; High Taxes + Tax base moves away = Lower Tax Revenues
The Thugocracy: Goes merrily on its way while press ignores.
Amy Welborn: Does Obama at Notre Dame.
Ralph Mcinerny: The Catholic House Divided. Divide and conquer?
The NY Times Investigates Itself: And decides it’s just great!
Let’s all beat our breasts: Remember when it was Catholicism that was the big “guilt-inducer”?
Share your First Communion Story and Win a prize!
Five Feet of Fury: Special Brands of Idiots
Insty: But where would they get the money?
Hitchens: Rightly notes how the inability to mock our leaders makes way for the tyrant.
Conversion Diary: Religion and Science; no conflict
Making vows: Feel kind of bad. Sr. Mary Peter makes solemn vows in Texas, where the PCPA’s hope to establish yet another Monastery. It’s great for sister, of course, but I wonder if she would not have loved making her vows in Alabama? Nuns are all about sacrifice, I guess. Living with 5 sisters might feel lonely after living with 40. Or…maybe not! :-)