When I think about those days, I just sigh and shake my head. How silly we were about things that just didn't matter. How temporary the "wisdom" of the time.
In the technical writing world, this practice has been all but abandoned. We leave pages blank at the end of a section or the end of a document and feel no need to explain why.
This page was part of a mailing from my insurance company received just yesterday advising me of its privacy practices. There were, in fact, two such pages in the packet. I supposed they figured if they didn't put that statement there, I might think something was missing -- that I might not simply understand they had nothing more to say.
And I thought immediately about this blog of mine, so neglected for so long. Perhaps I need to post one of those "intentionally blank" pages.
It's not so much that I've run out of things to say. It's more a matter of lack of fire, lack of passion. I have felt extremely subdued for a long time now. A month or so ago I went back and read old posts in this blog and realized how irrelevant most had become. I had passion then, but the topics were temporary, and my words now sound empty even to my own ears. As a result, I took down nearly all the posts on this blog except those with videos I like and posts that still get a lot of Google hits. By "take down" I mean I put them back into edit mode rather than delete them. I can still see them myself but I no longer publish them publicly.
I thought when the Utah legislature convened this month I would surely feel passionate enough to start writing again. There are plenty of idiotic things happening up on the hill this year, like every other year. But it just keeps occurring to me how temporary all of it is. Next year it will be something else, and the next year something else. And suddenly I'm not sure if it's my discouragement that we never see any improvement, or simply that it just seems not worth expending personal energy and strength to write how I feel about it. I just can't bring myself to pick a topic and write.
It feels wrong to be silent. I feel some obligation to speak. But without the fire that moves me to do it, anything I write is just hollow. So for now, this page is left blank intentionally. Until I find my old voice or a new one and a passion for the topics that belong on this page.