I think part of the reason why I’ve been blogging a lot less than previous years is that the internet feels too crowded. There is already so much content out there, so I don’t want to add anything unless there is something new and valuable in it.

Conversely, there is the notion of blogging as a very personal thing — a medium for self-expression in which there is little to no consideration of whether it reaches an audience. The blog exists for the blogger because there is a need or desire to write one’s thoughts and opinions. Then why not a private journal? Well, in my opinion, if a post reaches just one person who finds value in it, then it’s justified. There’s just no way of knowing if that will happen in the days after publishing, or several years later. My future self might be that person.

But with the ever-growing stuff all over the internet, and the belief that none of it is truly unique (or that if it is original, it will very soon be replicated by others anyway, and proliferate across the web like a disease), I feel like, by withholding a post, I’m not necessarily depriving anyone of such thoughts/ponderings/ideas because they are likely to find it elsewhere.

So why am I back here today? I don’t really know. Maybe the compulsion to write and to blog is greater than this vague overwhelm at the immensity of existing content.

Recently, I also thought about this thing of “used to”. I think I had told someone at work, sometime ago, that I don’t run as much as I used to. Cycling is my main cardio now, since I can cycle to work, and that’s a commute and workout done at the same time. It’s been like this for a couple of years at least. I still run occasionally, but not regularly because I don’t feel that same compulsion to run (probably because of all the cycling).

Anyway, it came up again for some reason, and he sort of said it like “oh, you don’t run as much as you used to”. For some reason I felt the need to be defensive about it. I thought of something I read one time (probably in a novel) that the saddest words are “used to” because it implies something regrettably lost. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing to say “I used to do this, but I don’t do it anymore”.

A lot of our identity is associated with what we do. But our identity is changeable. There’s no real reason to hold onto an old identity that doesn’t fit anymore. There’s no reason you have to continue with a hobby you started many years ago if you just don’t feel like doing it anymore, or if you’ve discovered other hobbies.

So why am I really here? Why am I back on the blog today? Maybe to mark a turning point, although this isn’t really the actual point of turning. It’s been more like an arc. Let’s see if it circles around.