We all get to the point where we wonder why we bother with something. We sort of do it from habit or from a sense of bizarre duty or obligation. You step back from the thing for a minute, scratch your head and ask "do I really want to keep on doing this just for the sake of it".
So it was for me a couple of days ago with The View from Cullingworth. It seemed to be a futile thing and, to be honest, a self-indulgingly futile thing to boot. So I took to Twitter to say that I was thinking of packing it all in since nobody much read it. As with a lot of public self-analysis, it ends up looking or sounding a bit daft, if nobody reads it why on earth should anybody bother whether or not it exists.
Anyway I'm not stopping after all because nice people told me I probably shouldn't (and what else were you going to do with your time anyway). I then considered whether I should be a little more purposeful - perhaps not to have anything so grand as an editorial strategy but to at least get a little more focus. But then I remembered we'd been there before as we tried to focus in on a limited few subjects in the hope that, by doing this, the place gets a few more regular readers of one sort or another.
So it'll still be whatever excites or irritates me at a given moment. Probably not surfing bang on the crest of the big news wave but rather paddling my way in the ripples and shallows of curiosity. This probably means you'll get a lot about housing and planning because, for all that it's seldom a big news story, it is really important to pretty much everyone and so much that's said about it is wrong. Perhaps there'll be more stuff cataloguing my travels through what being a conservative means these days. Plus a reminder about how much of government policy and decision-making is driven by a bunch of fussbuckets, worrywarts and jobsworths.
Anyway thanks to all those who bothered to say nice things about me, to those who gave me the benefit of their knowledge and especially to the folk who reminded me not to take myself quite so seriously.
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8 comments:
Glad you are keeping going. I find the posts illuminating and stimulating.
Keep up the good work
M
"So it'll still be whatever excites or irritates me at a given moment."
A good policy because your blog is always well worth visiting and if nothing excites or irritates us we have a problem.
More on mushrooms, please.
You should keep blogging because you have something to say. First, to express yourself, which all writers feel the need to do. Second, for the sake of those who find it interesting & worthwhile, even if (like me) they disagree with much or most of it.
Whatever others may say, one speaks for oneself and you will hopefully keep doing that.
I read your blog regularly - I would happily engage in debate with you - but it is just too difficult to communicate. DT and Head rambles are the only open forums I know of - the rest just rely on registering with the tech freaks in the USA - no thanks.
Yes, hang in there Simon. Stand up for economic freedom, and keep sticking it to the worrywarts and fussbuckets. The career of Tom Jones springs to mind.
I do not Twit so did not see your message.
However my thanks go to those did see it and suggested thst you blog on.
And thanks to you for heeding their plea.
I enjoy your meanderings. Much more interesting than a fixed agenda.
Good luck.
Don't stop! Your blog is always well worth reading and I've directed a lot of people to it. Often they are Leftish 'liberals' who claim they can't find any Conservative voices that are intelligent and worth reading - and they come back to me and say, OK, this guy has a point. God knows there are enough screaming idiots online, we need more like you, not less!
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