Periodically, through the 5+ years I've kept this blog, I've stopped to ask "Wait on, why do I keep writing here?". This is usually done in extremely arid periods for my creative side, where I wonder whether I'll ever be able to write anything meaningful again. The truly devoted reader will also remember posts that attempt to subsequently answer this question, which are usually along the lines of "As long as there is the capacity to feel a connection to something out of the mundane and ordinary, the desire to write will accompany it naturally". Does that mean the periods where I write nothing are filled with sweet nuthins? I don't think so. I think it's just that chronicling every such event is, firstly, infeasible, but also can lead to the chronicling overshadowing the living. There's the classic xkcd comic about going on a beautiful trek only to think about what a good blog post it will make; that, I think, is the danger.

I assume that there is going to be a time when I decide to quit while I'm ahead, and I wonder what, if anything, I will discover about myself looking back. I find some of my older writings quite painful to look at, not just because of their content. I sometimes worry that the undesirable elements that manifested them - the blackness of four years ago - still have some capacity to arise. The positive? I think the environment we create can help offset these inner demons, to quell them to some extent. I don't know if simply having put these demons to the page is enough to fully conquer them, but at least it gives one a clearer sense of what the enemy is.