Althouse: "Better for me to grab an hour in which to sit looking at the garden and sipping rooibos tea..."

June 26, 2006

"Better for me to grab an hour in which to sit looking at the garden and sipping rooibos tea..."

(My ex) Richard decides to cut way back on blogging... on the occasion of (my son) Chris saying he's up and quitting altogether. My other son, John, comments at Chris's post, saying why he's always known better than to blog: "I'm sure you're better off spending that time living -- in the nonblogosphere."

(Rooibos tea?)

18 comments:

goesh said...: I enjoyed his photos; 6/26/06, 10:23 AM
MadisonMan said...: Even commenting on a blog takes up enormous amounts of time!; 6/26/06, 10:40 AM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: You're a prophet of "live-free-through-blogging".

Prophets are rarely heard in their own land.; 6/26/06, 12:15 PM
Sigivald said...: Pedantically, I'd like to note that tea is an infusion of the tea plant, and that steeping random plants in water doesn't make tea, any more than boiling peach pits makes "peach coffee" (after all, peach pits are the seed of a fruit, just like coffee beans!).

More to the point, rooibos is an African herb sold as a tea-substitute.

I don't know about "supposedly organic"; one imagines that organic-to-whatever-specification depends on the producer and packager, since in terms of chemistry, it will always be organic. (The point being that one could, under such terms, have both organic and non-organic rooibos.); 6/26/06, 3:39 PM
Joseph said...: Your son seems to be very sweet and thoughtful and funny, the three qualities that mean the most to me.; 6/26/06, 6:26 PM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: This is the perfect post for me to once again argue for the merits of artisanal blogging, or slow blogging, or organic blogging.

Rather than rising at the crack of the day, and furiously reading and reviewing in order to come up with something to post, instead, you wait for inspiration to hit. Or when something specifically leaps out at you and says, "Write about me," you take fingers to keyboard. But not a second too soon.

And if days go by, weeks, months, you let it go. It's okay. Of course you mightn't have many readers, but that's fine too. Someone, somewhere, will be moved, and be willing to wait, and return, and peak back to see if more has been created.

Right now blogging tends to be done in timely fashion and people are used to that. But when enough bloggers say, "No, I will slow down and speak when there is something to say" the average reader will get used to it. In a given day, he will read his "fast food blogs" AND his "slow blogs", deriving different pleasures from each method.

Of course some might say removing the time factor kills the basic value of blogs, but I think the fundamental and higher value in blogging is the act of being an individual voice, and expressing oneself in any way one desires.

The timeliness and links are all mechanics. Is it better to post every hour, and with many links, and shed no light on anything? Or, is it better to take one's time, and bring some clarity, wit or joy.; 6/26/06, 6:27 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: "Even commenting on a blog takes up enormous amounts of time!"

Ok, am I missing something here? Granted, I type 90 wpm.....and think at 130....without caffeine mind you, but still...

(It's true, I've been talking to court reporters. The average person thinks at 130-140 wpm. Fast thinkers/talkers can get up to 170-180 wpm!)

How much time does all the mindless yakking on a cell phone take up?

What of all the mindless chit-chat, small talk, and yammering that goes on during the day?

How much time does that take up?

All the useless gossip, worthless regurgitation, empty drivel

...the hours wasted on all that,

yet (sniffle) there's simply no time to blog.

Cry me a river.

Peace, Maxine; 6/26/06, 6:52 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: Well, John doesn't know what he's talking about. Making such big, universal pronouncements.

Who does he think he is? Me?

It's not about "living" or not. It's about being "connected" vs "tuning out".

If John is engaged and plugged in without blogging, reading blogs, commenting, or the like.....great. There's different ways of forming connection.

But, sitting in the garden.....drinking foul tea....

...I don't know if that's an example of being connected....engaged. Plugged in.

It sounds like something a psychiatrist would prescribe. I don't think psychiatrists much like blogs. I'm sure bloggers and the unloading that goes on...cuts way into shrinks' $$$$$$$$.

No doubt.

The brain needs constant engagement and constant activity. And making "tart" and "witty" comments on current events is part of that. It gets the blood to the brain flowing and prevents stroke.

Taking it easy, and slowing the pace does just the opposite.

We humans need more engagement, and more connection. Not less.

Peace, Maxine; 6/26/06, 7:45 PM
Synova said...: Something is only good for you if it's good for *you*.

Blogs and commenting are definately time sinks and certainly can be destructive (like anything that people can get overly caught up in.)

So what do I do but start *another* blog. LOL. I'm not very consistant though. My original was "anything I want to post" but this new one is going to be more focused... and the reason I'm going ahead and talking about it *here* is that it's prompted by the neo-con "thing" where people who think of themselves as moderate or mostly liberal are being labled conservative. Which is something Ann has mentioned and certainly what she's said about this has influenced my perceptions as a "never-liberal." Nor is she even remotely an isolated case.

Sometimes it seems like the most *liberal* attitudes about equality and justice and being human don't come from the left at all, but from the (often newly christened) right.

uuyau; 6/26/06, 8:04 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "The brain needs constant engagement and constant activity. And making "tart" and "witty" comments on current events is part of that. It gets the blood to the brain flowing and prevents stroke."

This is why Zen meditation'll kill you.; 6/26/06, 9:39 PM
Anonymous said...: It's time to stop blogging when you start to take it too seriously.

Blogging can consume all your time. It's all you think about during work, when you're out with friends, etc. That's when it's taking over your life, and when you just have to quit.

Most bloggers become way too opinionated (not you Ann) and frankly, they turn into complete assholes, unable to accept the fact that people might have a different opinion than them.

Michelle Malkin for example . . .; 6/26/06, 10:18 PM
Chris Althouse Cohen said...: goesh: I'm still going to do the photo stuff, including occasional photoblogs--just no regular blogging.

Maxine: When you actually have a blog and feel obligated to put up multiple entertaining and interesting posts up every day, it becomes a suprisingly big burden. I don't know how Ann manages to blog as much as she does, because even three posts a day seemed like it took up all my free time. It's the fact that it's a daily requirement that makes it like that.; 6/26/06, 10:19 PM
Chris Althouse Cohen said...: downtownlad: Wasn't Malkin always like that?; 6/26/06, 10:20 PM
Chris Althouse Cohen said...: Note: add "like that" to my list of phrases to no longer use at the very end of a comment.; 6/26/06, 10:22 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: Chris: You, and your brother's theories about time constraints ...

....might be valid in December when the days are naturally shorter.

But, we just had a Summer Solstice only days ago.

Summer days are lengthy with nothing but time.

And, the obligations of a Blogger have nothing to do with being entertaining.

All the Blogger is really required to do....is to .....check in....on a daily basis.

A grunt. A sigh. A word. A breath. A different letter of the alphabet each day----And a wisecracker like me would could make a million comments as to why you chose THAT particular letter/hieroglyphic ...for the day!

...anything else is gravy.

I type 90 words a minute with no errors. I 'think' at 130 wpm---with multiple errors.

I've been doing it for a little over 2 months now. It does not take me an hour to post. It doesn't even take me a half hour.

If I wrote a daily journal, with horrible handwriting (I flunked cursive) that I wouldn't, nor anyone else, be able to read...

....that would take hours.

Yapping on the phone, yammering on about current events...Now there's something that's exhausting and costs money!

To me blogging beats out all that.

The only negative, for me, is the lack of $$$$$$$.

It has nothing to do with time, or obligation. It's about $$$$$$$$. But even the most popular bloggers aren't making any! So, I don't feel so bad on that account.

Peace, Maxine; 6/26/06, 11:06 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Note: add "like that" to my list of phrases to no longer use at the very end of a comment."

Stuff like that makes me feel so genetically related to you.; 6/26/06, 11:07 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Maxine: I like the way you're so right (and concise) about a lot of things but also just go ahead and say some things that aren't even meant to be right. It's a cool style you invented.

I agree that to blog you mainly need to put at least one thing up every day, and it's a nice idea to just write only one word to get by. I've posted every day, including one day when I had no time at all and wrote only one sentence. But one word could have worked too.; 6/26/06, 11:13 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: ...And folks, there you have it! We now know the secret of how Ann manages to put forth such volume:

She doesn't sleep! She's an inveterate insomniac, like me!

Seriously, these are hot, long Summer days.

Hibernate in the Winter.

Summer is a time for back-porch blogging all night long!

Peace, Maxine; 6/26/06, 11:19 PM