If you’re going to write a lot, reading a lot just comes with the territory. It follows that since I’ve written a lot of blog posts, I’ve also read a lot of them written by other people. I’ve been enchanted by a number of blogs over the years. The single most frustrating thing about many of them is sometimes they sort of stop without any rhyme or reason. The stories these people tell just end. It’s deeply unsatisfying and I can’t help but wonder what series of events led someone who may have been so committed to posting regularly for years to suddenly stop.
This isn’t a post to say I’m suddenly stopping. It is, however, a post to say I’m going to take a (hopefully) brief pause. Maybe a week or two. Maybe a little longer.
My intent is to get back at it as soon as I’m feeling like I can give the written word the kind of attention I’ve always believed it deserves. The effort is worth a lot more mental horsepower than I’m currently feeling able to put in. So yeah, I’m giving it a temporary rest.
Not to worry, though. My notes pages are already filling up with dribs and drabs that will be the kernels of future posts. Given the state of the world and the inevitably of bumping up against human stupidity, I’m sure I’ll feel the undeniable urge to rage about something sooner rather than later. I’d just like to be able to do it when I’ve got a little less brain fog and a lot more ability to focus on fine details.
In the meantime, you’ve got almost 4,000 old posts ranging all the way back to 2006 sitting here, so don’t be afraid to dig around the archives a little. Some of what’s buried there are real gems.
Tag Archives: break
Tossing the schedule…
As the end of the year bears down on us like an onrushing bus, I’m strongly leaning towards temporarily abandoning the normal schedule.
I give it the good old college try to get a post up here every weekday of the year. With the exception of federal holidays that I sometimes forget are weekdays, I mostly hit the mark. You’ve probably noticed that at least a fair amount of what ends up on these pages is at least tangentially related to work. Given that we’re about to hit a two week stretch when work will be the very last thing on my mind, there’s likely to be a dearth of quality source material from that front. If I happen to also mostly ignore the news, well, there’s no telling what, if any, ideas might percolate.
I don’t think I’ll be taking a two-week break – the chances of me shutting up for 17 days in a row is absolutely nil – but I do expect the final two weeks of the year will be a time when I toss the schedule completely out the window and let posts fall when and where the motivation strikes.
With all that said, don’t be surprised come December 19th if you don’t see a spanking new post hitting every night promptly at 6:00. I promise you’ll still get a healthy dose of angst and hostility over the ultra-long Christmas/New Year’s weekend, but I don’t want to commit myself to any kind of a schedule. It’s my longest break of the year, after all, and I fully intend most of it to be a true break from any kind of expected performance.
In recovery…
This is the first time in about a month that my laptop hasn’t followed me home. It’s the first time I’ve even attempted to restore the hard earned balance between the quiet, peaceful, sustaining world of the homestead and world across the river that would happily eat up all the free and easy moments if given half a chance.
Already in just these few minutes I’m feeling less submerged in the deep water – far happier for being now surrounded by my animals, my books, and no hint of a self-inflicted crisis with which to be dealt. I won’t pretend that this is anything approaching a controlled environment, but the common problems are swiftly put right and order, such as it is, reigns. Those problems that rightly dwell on the other side of the river, are less apt to be corrected no matter the time and resources brought to bear against them.
No one knows better than I that control is an illusion. Even if it is a fiction, it’s a happy fiction, and one that I’m pleased to let have its way here inside my own four walls. I’m in a slow recovery from the week and months that were. I feel better now than I did ten short hours ago, so that’s something – a good sign perhaps. Throw in a few days of real down time and I might have a fighting chance of really feeling like myself again. A boy can dare to dream.
Break…
It’s recently come to my full and complete attention that I have a problem. As usual, it’s one of my own making and I take complete responsibility for it. Increasingly I’ve found myself pulled further and further into the rabbit hole that is Facebook. Between that and dwelling far too much inside the echo chamber between my own ears, it’s not the best of times.
I feel less able to focus and driven largely to distraction – or perhaps it’s just allowed me to better focus on the wrong things. The Facebook experience has reached a point where it seems to be pulling me further afield from how I really want to spend my time, namely real reading and real writing. The shouting match of Facebook has left me with the distinct impression that it’s currently taking more from me than I’m getting in return. Under the circumstances it seems that the most reasonable thing to do might be to take a few steps back, reinforce the center, and then evaluate where things go from there.
None of this should imply I’m not curious about the day to day comings and goings of the 500 or so people I’m connected with, but I just don’t know that I’m currently curious enough to keep grinding myself down to slake that curiosity. Increasingly what I’m finding delivered into my feed are items I’d be better off, or at least happier, for not knowing. As it turns out, sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Who knew, right?
I never thought I’d find myself pondering the virtue of seeking at least partial refugee status from the social media age, but there it is. Will I do it? Can I? I have no idea. Should I do it? Yeah, that answer is resoundingly clear. What that could mean given the interconnected, but somehow less intrusive feeling platforms like Twitter and Instagram remains to be seen.
The only certainty at the moment is that nothing I do will in any way negatively impact my ongoing commitment to writing here as often as possible. Since the beginning, and even more so now, it serves as my primary check valve to vent off anger and frustration before it becomes something less manageable. You’ll never know how fortunate I count myself that I learned early on the importance of “using your words.” In a world ruled by 140 character limits, hanging on to the ability to communicate in prose feels all the more important.
Beyond all of that, I won’t even speculate about what taking a Facebook break may look like – or even if I’ll end up doing it at all. At the moment, though, it’s sounding like one of the best ideas I’ve had in years.
Hitting pause…
In the interest of not committing myself to deliver something I may not feel like doing, I’m going to go ahead and state for the record that my intention over the next few days is to declare an operational pause, take a knee, and not do much writing over the next few days. I really think I could benefit from just turning my brain off and letting the system reset, so that’s the barest sketch of what I’m planning for between now and next week.
As usual, of course, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time and resume posting like a madman. It feel like even odds on whether that will happen or not. It’s hard to imagine four days passing by without something seeming noteworthy.
With that, I’ll wish you all the very best for a merry Christmas and get on about the too-long list of things that need to get don around here before sun up tomorrow.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Priorities. I never expect to be anyone’s top priority – except my own of course. All I’ve ever wanted is to know, definitively where I fall on the spectrum of importance. My projects don’t tend to be flashy, they’re not always the high visibility ones, they’re the ones that tend to go along unnoticed and unremarked (unless something goes horribly wrong). They’re the workhorse projects that just need to get done with a minimum of trouble. They’re sort of a personal specialty of mine. While most of them motor along without much intervention, that doesn’t mean they always will. Occasionally I’m going to fire off a red star cluster. I like to think my track record shows that I’m not just doing it to get attention – but because there’s an honest to God problem somewhere in the works. But if I’m going to be dumped into the “yeah, yeah, we’ll get to you later” pile, I will plan and execute accordingly.
2. I am not the decider. Call as often as you want. Try to drop names to intimidate or influence me. Have your boss “follow-up.” See, the thing is I’m not the decider. In fact you’d be alarmed if you knew how little authority I had to do anything at all. My job is to provide analysis, advice, and recommendations. What people do with those once I provide them, I can’t and won’t answer for. I’ve gotten very adept at standing like a stone wall in the face of bitching and complaints. I can do it all day every day and not so much as raise my voice. If you need to talk to someone who’s going to “feel your pain,” you called the wrong number… but feel free to have your boss call and I’ll tell him the same thing.
3. Working lunch. No, I’m not going to consider a pack of crackers and a Coke scarfed down at my desk at 2:00 in the afternoon while trying to catch up on email “taking my lunch.” I’ll take lunch during socially agreed time of day for the mid-day meal or I’ll take it off the end of the day. It’s not optional and not a topic open to debate. In neither case will it be a “working” lunch. If people can’t figure out not to schedule meetings back to back or let them run 45 minutes over in the middle of the day, other, eminently practical provisions will be made, as rest assured I value nothing so highly as my own time.
Two days off…
Some of you may have noticed that I played hooky for two days this weeks, leaving the ivy covered halls of jeffreytharp.com without new posts on both Friday and Saturday. It wasn’t quite intentional, but I don’t exactly feel guilty about it either. Trust me when I say that posting seven days a week – through vacations, holidays, illness, and any number of other distractors – is a brutal pace. Don’t take that as a 
complaint, though. Given unlimited time and no requirement to feed myself, maintain an income-generating job, and keep up with the occasional outside interest, there’s not many things I would rather do than sit here tapping on the keys. So yeah, sometimes I’m just going to let it rest for a day or two
I think what’s happening is that I’m slowly trying to work my way into a new schedule – probably a slightly less intense six day a week kind of deal. Fridays are currently the front runner for my “day off.” That’s mostly because by the time I wade through a work week and make it to Friday, my brain has turned to some kind of viscous jell that can’t manage much in the way of coherent thought. I figure if one of the treatments for concussion is strict rest and minimizing activities that require extreme concentration, giving the old brain box a day off is probably a good idea. After all, five days in the office certainly feels like being beaten about the head and neck with a blunt object, so the treatment and recovery process should be more or less the same, no?
Christmas Hiatus…
I’m thinking about taking a Christmas hiatus. Seriously. I mean it this year. I’m really considering just pulling the plug and letting this place gather dust for the next week or so. After all, it’s not like many sites put up a whole bunch of new content during the holidays when people are paying attention to other things. It really seems like a perfect time to take a little break without too many people noticing I’ve been gone. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before actually. It might be interesting to see how things play out when “how can I write a post about this” isn’t always pinging around the back of my head. Then again, maybe I’ll hate it and be right back to posting before the weekend even rolls around.
Right now it’s just an idea I’m kicking around, but if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s just because I’ve idled the engines for a few days not that I’m taking a permanent vacation. Or not. I think everything depends on how I feel and how interested I actually am in writing on a day by day basis. Just now I happen to think that a week off is just what the doctor ordered of course that could easily change the moment some shiny bauble catches my attention. How’s that for being indecisive and noncommittal?
The Return of the King…
I’m pleased to announce that my self-imposed electronic exile is over. Pictures and will follow later this week. Couldn’t have asked for a better quickie vacation, though the back-to-back 12-hour drives are a bit of a ball-buster.
Holiday…
I’m taking a house-hunting holiday. I think I sort of overdosed yesterday and will spend this afternoon recuperating somewhere dark and smoky, hopefully in the presence of some type of malted alcoholic beverage.
Unlike the DC suburbs, the problem here isn’t really finding a house at the price you are willing to pay, but rather narrowing down the selection of the 5,000 or so that are in your price range. It’s a good position to be in as a buyer, but it’s also a damned frustrating position to be in because after about three weeks of being in and out of places, they all sort of run together.
There are so many places I have liked, so many features I want, and such good deals, it may just be better for me to build the damned place from scratch and make sure I get exactly what I want. Sure, it doesn’t have the cache of being in an old neighborhood, but then again it doesn’t have hundred-year-old pipes and electric system installed by a company owned by Thomas Edison.
At some point I’ll figure out exactly WFT I’m doing… and when I do, y’all will be the first to know. In the meantime, I think it’s beer-o’clock.
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