so i've been thinking.

what a surprise.

i overthink a lot of things. i think about a lot, a lot, a lot of things. i rarely underthink things (but that is something else all together). i am also fairly tired, so this attempt at putting various elements of my recent thinking/overthinking onto the proverbial page might be somewhat scattered. another surprise, i know.

so, this blog. as we've all noticed, it's kind of...blah lately. i've pointed this out before, and talked about how i'm not going to force myself to write, and said i should just use this space as an opportunity to write when i'd like to write, blah blah blah. but the truth? i do feel an obligation to posting somewhat regularly on here, regardless of how many readers i have or how irrational that sense of obligation may seem. whereas early on in my blogging life, that obligation tended to function in a more positive way, spurring me to read more widely around the blogosphere and try to add something to the discussion - enterprises which were both enriching in their own way, of course. but now that obligation is starting to seem both more futile and more tedious. there are fewer and fewer days when i am writing on here because i want to; there are more and more days when i am writing on here because i feel i have to. (and no need for reassurances about expectations - i know that ultimately there are none - i know i'm the only one putting this weirdo pressure on myself.)

i am thinking about this particular situation in a broader context - one in which i'm trying to consider a number of ideas and questions about my life and how i'm living it. what motivates me, really? what do i like to do? what do i want to do? what are my goals really all about?

these questions, at this point, aren't being met with any shiny happy answers - lately i've started coming into some interesting mental territory regarding my own personal hang-ups, weaknesses, and confusions and begun trying to really examine what might be at the heart of a lot of these shortcomings. i could say more about this - and maybe i will. i feel like if this blog is going to be useful, interesting, and beneficial to me (and really, to be honest, to anyone else) in the near future, i'm going to have to decide if i'm brave enough to start writing through a lot of this stuff instead of just thinking through it. because (in an obnoxious, confusing, meta kind of way) these questions and how i investigate/answer them will be central to how i decide to keep being a writer. or if i decide to keep being a writer.

so anyway. i just wanted to do a little direct audience address here to my little readership and let you in on a bit of where my head is at. i know the blog hasn't really been its usual self lately, and i wish i could say it'll be back to its usual self shortly. but i'm not sure. thanks for hanging in with me, though, while i haphazardly shuffle around, destinationless, trying to figure it out.