Now and then, I just lose the thread. Why am I doing this again?
Yes, some reasons are close to the surface: There’s a certain amount of fun in it. It’s satisfying to have my small but faithful audience. I tell myself that there’s a certain value to the practice in it: putting the words together, thinking a little about what’s going on out there outside the room, finding ways to distill what I stumble across into a coherent couple of paragraphs.
Yet sometimes that all seems pretty insubstantial. On one level, the world is full of people holding forth on the state of the world and everything happening in it. I don’t kid myself: There’s not much new I have to add to the general deliberations. On another level, any work benefits from a sense of purpose or direction. That’s what is occasionally lacking for me here, and is lackinng now: That sense of north and south, up, down, forwards, and backwards.
Of course, there’s a larger context for this: figuring out what the next step in my work life is. My journalism career has undergone a major change if it’s not in fact over. So what’s the next act: Well, maybe getting my B.A. so I can teach history to the hungry minds in a community college class somewhere — a natural place, maybe, for all that stuff kicking around in my head.
You’d be a natural history teacher. Dan, whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck.
Something Martha Graham said comes to mind:
“You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.”
Only you can be the Infospigot, Dan. If you stop the stream, your particular flavor of info-news-trivia thirst-quencher is lost to the whole world. Who knows what or whom you’ve inspired by posting your particular insights and views. Actually, just glance through your comments archives for an idea of it. But your contribution extends far further and I believe – nay, I know from experience – that all earnest action opens the way to new opportunities.
Which recalls something else MG said:
“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”
Dan, you can’t give-up on your blog. Your voice is so unique, and I look forward to reading it every day. However, I will also have to say you would be a great and most interesting teacher. You’re a pretty remarkable guy.
Pardon the lecturing tone, but you will always be a journalist — observing, contemplating what you see, asking questions to fill in the gaps and pulling it all together for others to consider. But I think you’d make a great teacher, too.