So I made it to my vanity goal – this is my 1000th post.
It took me six and a half years, a pace of roughly 3 posts every week. Surprisingly, this is very close to the pace I initially established at the beginning of this endeavor, but obviously well below my peak from late 2007 through mid-2009. Since that peak, my output dwindled to barely noticeable; the last 50 of the thousand took over a year to get through.
Those readers who stuck with me through the latter years will recall that I’ve been dropping enough hints that I was no longer finding blog-writing an enjoyable – or, to be blunt, worthwhile – exercise. I got into blogging when it was a common fad and when I had a somewhat uncommon angle to work. It has now been longer since our return to the States from England than the duration of our entire stay in England, so the angle is long gone. I cannot work up enthusiasm for any other angles. And the fad is clearly on its way out.
Majority of the people whom I got to know on interwebs through their online writings are on a similar curve with respect to their own blogging. A few are ahead of me – they already stopped updating their blogs. Many are mirroring my trajectory down from the peak output, having significantly reduced the frequency of new content. They mostly migrated to Facebook or Twitter, opting for shorthand writing instead of essaying. As far as I can see, only the professionals are continuing strong in the regular blogging department – that is, people who either directly make money from their blogs or who use blogging as cultivating ground for the prospective buyers of their commercially available products. It is needless to point out that those people are significantly more talented than me in the creative writing department.
The long and the short of it, this is the end of the road for my blogging in its current shape. I might get a sudden epiphany of what my new angle could be or I might even wake up one day and feel a renewed vigor to try my hand at writing, but I would not bet much money on it actually happening. I appreciate all the encouragement I received from friends over the years, but in the immortal words of Dirty Harry, a man’s got to know his limitations, and one of mine is: I am only an indifferent writer. If I managed to entertain people or provide a useful insight in the past, it was decidedly not due to any superior wordsmith skills.
So, now, having achieved a symbolic, if meaningless, milestone, I am going to call it.
The existing content will stay in this same place in the short term. I have not yet considered what I will do with the hosting and the domain – since the costs are fairly minimal, I might just keep them intact for the foreseeable future. Comments are being closed off, but I am reachable via email at the link on the sidebar in case any of my old posts triggers a question from someone. And while I do not maintain an overly active presence on social networks, I am reachable there too.
With that, I bid you all good luck and farewell. May you always find interesting reads elsewhere!