Writing and Blogging are Strange

Writing and blogging are both strange processes. You struggle to find the right words to express what you are thinking.  You work, rework and rework your every word. You choose one word and thereby omit another.  Then you wonder if anything you are saying actually matters. And that wondering does not stop. You decide to finally post on the blog.  You agonize over the whole text again and again and still again.  You post.  Nothing happens.  Your wife tells you that what you wrote was very good.  One or two students write to say they liked it.  Then, nothing.  You do not hear much more from anyone.  The world goes on as if you had not written at all.  You may feel good having written but most everyone seems to be signaling that they would be just as fine if you did not write.  But go ahead, if you need to.

So, I am asking myself, why bother to write?  What are you hoping to achieve?  I really do not know.  I have struggled with these thoughts for so long that it seems right to put them down and share them with others.  My long departed friend, Fritz Rusch, used to say that he did not write because everything he was thinking was derivative anyway.  Fritz struggled a lot with depression. He might have felt better had he written his stuff down. I loved him and I miss him.

Blogging is strange because you write and people read through their own lenses and tell themselves that they get what you are saying.  But, there is none of the back and forth of the classroom that I love.  I can't see their eyes.  Maybe it has to do with effect.  Those of us who grew up in the sixties were arrogant enough to think that we could change the world.  So, we set about trying to do that.  Now, as we approach that terribly strange age of 70 ( a nod to Paul Simon), we see that the world remains much the same as it was and will get along quite well without us.  So much for effect.

So, why write?  I get up early every morning and write.  Why bother to have such a discipline?   Maybe to say in some way, “Hey listen, I was here for a brief while.  I tried to think through what we are all doing here.  I wrestle with God.  I wrestle with religions and religious questions.  I think that the truth lies in wrestling with the most difficult questions.  I think the questions are more important than the answers to the questions, especially when it comes to religion.  Can you see and hear me being here and trying to think this all through?  It seems to make me happy to get all these thoughts out of me and written down.  Maybe, it will help someone along the way.  But, I feel compelled to keep on with it and so I will.  I do hope that something I have written will help you to go on and remain sane.  More to come . . .