Q. Where would you like to be?
A. In a place of less clutter.
Q. What kinds of things are cluttering up your place?
A. Lots of things. But we can begin with WordPress.
Q. What do you mean?
A. I don’t have much of a commitment to blogging. At least, not in its current form. And the idea I keep having on how to expand and enhance this blog seems unwieldy.
Q. Unwieldy?
A. Yes. The idea is to post six times a week with different themes on each day of the week. But this is unwieldy. It gets in the way of others things that I not only can do, but that I must do. Blogging is not something that I must do. And it ceases to be enjoyable or worthwhile, when it is done out of a sense of obligation.
Q. Obligation?
A. Obligation. Take the gratitude list I made yesterday, for example. It took me a good hour to come up with five things I felt comfortable with posting online, five things for which I was truly grateful. But I wouldn’t let go of the task, because I felt obligated.
Q. Who is obligating you?
A. No one other than myself. But the point is, if it’s become such an obligation, why do it?
Q. Why do you do it?
A. Two reasons that I know of. One is habit. The other is hard to describe, but it comes from my dad. He was very disappointed in me, because I was the first-born son, and I was supposed to follow in his footsteps. But I wasn’t cut out to get into the things that he was good at, the things he was trying to teach me. He also intimidated me, and I had trouble concentrating when he tried to teach me something. So he wound up very often shaking his head in disgust and saying, “Andy, I’m afraid you can’t do ANYTHING right!”
As a result, I have become a person who won’t give up, even when I’m beating a dead horse. I keep trying to please my dad. I keep trying to “get it right.”
Q. Is that why you keep on blogging?
A. Well, it’s why I keep thinking I’m ever going to accede to a six-day-per-week strict schedule. I could maybe keep blogging every now and then, like say posting an essay of some sort, when I really think I have something to say. But all this other stuff — it just gets in the way.
Q. In the way of what, Andy?
A. In the way of the fact that I’ve got a musical to produce. I don’t know if anyone will ever produce it, but I’m passionate about the prospects thereof. To focus on the production of the musical, something’s got to give.
Q. But what about balance?
A. What about it?
Q. You can’t spend all your time working on your musical, can you?
A. Of course not! In fact, the musical’s done. Just a few more bits and pieces to get it ready for complete packaging and submission. But it’s essentially done — I could submit it now, and supply the loose ends later. I can balance all that out with things that don’t take up so much time and energy as blogging – especially when I find I can’t keep to the six day schedule anyway. That is, it’s very difficult to — and not very rewarding when I succeed.
Q. Why not?
A. I feel that, no matter how many times I try to make the blogs tasteful and not too personal, and no matter how many times I try to make social statements and not personal statements, personal statements still leak through.
Q. What’s wrong with that?
A. I’m trying to get a musical produced. Does the world need to know my personal issues?
Q. Does the world read your blog?
A. Not right now, but they will if I actually get my musical produced.
Q. So what’s your solution?
A. People can find my piano pieces by subscribing to my YouTube channel, and I strongly encourage those who have enjoyed my gratitude lists to create their own. Counting one’s blessings is a valuable tool for the sustenance of well-being in a challenging world. My articles may be read wherever they are published, and I can continue to communicate with the five or six people who faithfully read my blog through other interfaces.
Q. May I ask a final question?
A. Only if it’s final.
Q. Isn’t your musical about a personal issue of yours?
A. Not at all. But you’re just going to have to read the script to find out.
The Questioner is silent.
Please donate to Eden in Babylon.
Eden in Babylon 
If you get the musical produced, you could switch all the old posts to private so they’re for your benefit only, and then republish any that you want to put back out into the world. To censor yourself now based on what might happen in the future seems unnecessarily self-limiting.
Trying to stick to a posting schedule while other things are going on sounds like a good way to set oneself up for frustration. I suspect that it’s true for most bloggers that readers expect less of the the blogger than the blogger does of themselves. And while we’re very aware of when we post, others are much more likely to be oblivious (🙋♀️).
LikeLiked by 2 people
I did read about this in your blog lately, but I have no idea how to privatize my entries. I can look into it, or maybe you’ll email me about it. I’ve been wanting to have the option to privatize my entries for a long time.
Being as I just told Ken what I told him, I’m thinking to revise the black-and-white nature of this decision. I reflected on it, and realized that this could just be another instance of trying to “get it right.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s impossible to get it right, because there is no right. But I’ll email you about how to do it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see. I’ll look forward to your email.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a fan of the gratitude list. It shows perspective. No reason you have to do it every week though. You could do it monthly and accumulate some notes during the month so when it comes time to publish it isn’t that much of a chore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, you know I may change my mind. And this is part of the problem. I keep trying to “get it right” — to please my Dad — and in so doing, I keep changing my mind about what I should do, because I have the sense that what I’m doing “isn’t right.”
I’ve recently thought (along the same lines as your suggestion) that if I thought of five things during the week that I’m grateful for, rather than waiting till Monday (and sometimes not showing up till Tuesday), it might work better.
The only thing I can think of where this defect of mine may be palatable is in the case of my musical. I’ve rewritten it numerous times — trying to get it right. But from what I hear, it keeps getting better and better. This is what I hear from theatre arts professionals — people whose judgment I trust.
So I keep hammering away at it. The reason I am releasing it now and not at some future time is because I have realized that if I don’t, I will keep rewriting it forever, and simply never move on.
All that said, Ken, I’ll consider your suggestion. I’ve enjoyed your support on this blog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is one of those posts that leave me wondering how is it possible that you are thinking my thoughts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It might be the time of the season, Linda. A lot of similar thoughts in the air these days.
LikeLiked by 1 person