Summer 2019: State of the Blog Update

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Artwork: Summer Bloom, by Nikola Leonard

Summer 2019: State of the Blog Update

The Past 

On Wednesday June 5th, 2013, I wrote a post on my old blog (of blessed memory) entitled Thorns, Nettles, and the State of This Blog. I began the post with Mishlei 24:28-34:

I passed by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a man lacking [an understanding] heart, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; nettles had covered its surface; and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw this, I set my heart [to understand]; I saw and I took mussar (discipline). A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to recline, and your poverty will come like a traveler, and your lacking like an armed man.

In that post I went on to explain the mussar Shlomo ha'Melech took from this experience. It had to do with witnessing the cumulative consequences of laziness. I cited the Meiri, who explained:

[These pesukim] teach us that laziness causes damage little by little until it reaches an extreme state. In the beginning the only growth was brambles, thorns, and thistles - all of which are soft and easily removable. But due to [the owner's] laziness, they continued to grow until they covered the entire surface of the field and vineyard, thereby making them difficult to remove. Still, if he had made a concerted effort, he would still be able to fix things. But due to his laziness, [these thorns continued to grow] until the stone wall was broken down, thereby exposing [his field] to be consumed by the herds of oxen and sheep [thereby leading him to the poverty mentioned at the end of the pesukim].

Then I addressed the state of my blog. I lamented that the quantity and quality of my posts waned after I started teaching full-time several years prior, and I expressed my frustration over my inability to achieve the levels of prolificacy that I had managed to attain several years prior to that, during the dawn of the Jewish Blogosphere (2007-2010). 

To remedy this laziness, I stated my intention to make three changes to my blogging habits:

1. Daily Content: Taking an inspirational cue from Grace Helbig, a vlogger I followed in the early 2010's, I committed myself to posting every single weekday during the summer months. In addition to increasing the number of posts I'd write, I also felt that this would help me "to loosen the reins on my perfectionism and be satisfied uploading posts which don't live up to my ridiculously unrealistic perfectionist standards." (In editing this post I realized that I had initially typed "reigns" instead of "reins" which shows you just how much control I still feel that I need.)
   
2. Syncing Blog and Mind: Secondly, I wanted to make my blog a place where, when someone asked me, "What do you think about such-and-such?" I could say, "I wrote a blog post on that" and that blog post would reflect my most up-to-date thoughts on that topic. My blog would serve as a repository for my views and ideas in a manner that could easily be shared with others.
   
3. More Mishlei: My blog in 2013 didn't have much Mishlei on it, mostly because I used to have another blog devoted specifically to Mishlei, which had become defunct by 2013. I wanted to find a way to incorporate ideas from my favorite sefer into the regular routine of the blog. 

Little did I know that the very next year, I'd be forced to shut down my blog. The following summer, in 2014, I started this blog - Kol ha'Seridim - from scratch. Although I was furious about the situation at the time, it ended up being a blessing in disguise. I used the relaunching of the blog to change the tone of my writing, and to edit many of my old posts to reflect my updated views and updated standards of clarity. 

With Hashem's help, I was able to follow through on all three of the goals I had set for myself. I kept up with my daily blogging schedule each summer, and was very happy with the numbers:

• 2014: 37 posts
• 2015: 55 posts
• 2016: 64 posts
• 2017: 58 posts
• 2018: 46 posts
• Total posts to date: 267 posts 

My new blog became significantly more "synced up with my mind" than my old one. And, starting a few summers ago, I incorporated weekly Mishlei posts into my blogging routine. I was happy with the way I was writing, and the blog flourished.

The Present

When the bulk of my classes ended this year in mid-May I resolved to "get ahead" with my blogging schedule. I knew that I'd be taking a two week long road trip from June 23rd to July 5th, and I wanted to make sure that I had my daily posts written and ready to go, so I wouldn't have to worry about writing while I was on the road. 

Then I got sick. Sicker than I had been in a few years. I was out of commission for nearly two weeks, and couldn't muster up the energy to write. I did not get ahead as plan.

Summer is quickly approaching. I still have tons of end-of-the-year duties to take care of before the school year ends, and I leave for my road trip in 12 days. I've been fretting over how I'm going to manage to drive 5-8 hours a day AND write decent blog posts AND enjoy my road trip. 

Soon after I arrive at my destination, we'll be going to visit my grandmother until mid-July. Although I've managed to keep up my blogging during this annual summer trip, it isn't always easy. There are definitely days that I've spent more time indoors writing than out enjoying the vacation that my grandmother helps pay for.

I've also been thinking about what I'll be doing for the rest of the summer. I plan on doing somewhat of an overhaul on several of my curricula this summer to make the upcoming academic year more efficient. I need to do this, or else I'll burn out this year, as I've been on the verge of doing at various points over the past couple of years. 

Not only that, but College Board threw me a curve ball by updating the one AP Course I teach, which means that I'll need to rework my curriculum for that class this summer as well. 

With all of these thoughts piling on top of me, I started having anxiety about how I'll get all of this done and still keep up the frequency and caliber of my blog posts.

Then it hit me: I don't have to write a blog post every day! Nobody is forcing me to do it. To be more accurate: there's only one person forcing me to do it, and that's me. 

At first I justified my stance on the basis of duty. I have readers. They expect me to write. They depend on the daily dose of learning I provide. How could I let them down?

But after digging  little deeper, I came to terms with the fact that this is a rationalization. I realized that the main thing keeping me attached to this daily schedule was pride. I took pride in telling people that I write one post every weekday for the entire summer. I took pride in my disciplined writing routine - in the fact that I'd stay up late into the summer nights on the West Coast writing, editing, and tweaking my blog posts so that they'd be ready for my readers by 6:00am East Coast Time. I took pride in seeing the number of blog posts I published every year.

And I realized that there was another reason I had for sticking to the daily blogging routine: stubbornness. Whenever I thought of deviating from my routine of the past five summers, I recoiled at the thought, saying, "What are you thinking?! How can you stop now? You've done this for five whole summers!" 

But then I pictured what the first leg of this summer would look like, particularly during the road trip. That picture included a lot of guilt, a lot of hastily written posts done with the urgency of meeting the deadline regardless of quality, and a lot of frustrating and joyless writing.

That's not the writer I want to be.  

On Erev Shavuos I decided that it was time for a change. 

The Future

Here are my three new goals for this summer:

1. To NOT Post Every Day: My decision in 2013 to commit to daily posting was a good one. I set that goal and I met it, and my learning and my blog benefited from the decision. But now it's time to go to the other extreme, in order to break the neurotic pride and stubbornness that are my tag-team of taskmasters. My road trip at the end of June will really put this to the test. Will I be at peace with my decision to not write a blog post every day during the summer? Only time will tell. That'll be an interesting trip in more ways than one.
   
2. To NOT Stick to Deadlines: These past summers I've scrambled to finish posts so that they're ready in time to go up at 6:00am Eastern Time. I've rushed divrei Torah to make sure they're completed in a timely manner. I've stayed up late messing with the fonts, alignment, and margins of the PDF so that they look aesthetically pleasing. Now I'm going to be more lax when it comes to these self-imposed deadlines. Today's intentionally late post was the first time I tested this goal.
   
3. To Return to Playing with Torah: The problems I've acknowledged here are intimately related with the writing problems I've struggled with on numerous occasions. I've written about these problems in my post: Playing with Torah. If you've read this before then you'll know what I'm talking about. If you don't, then check out that post. Practically speaking, this means that I'm going to return to writing about what I want to write about, ignoring the feeling that I need to innovate or to write or not write about specific topics based on my readership. This recent interest in writing about lishmah and she'lo lishmah is a great example of this. Part of me said, "Will be readers really be interested in this topic as much as I am? Maybe I should write about what they're interested in." But NO! I need to write about what I'm interested in, since that's going to produce the best writing. If someone loses interest in my blog, then there's plenty more Torah content out there for them to consume instead.

So there you have it. Those are my three goals for Summer of 2019. I succeeded in the three goals I set for myself in the Summer of 2013, and seeing as how I'm six years older and wiser and more mature, I'm reasonably optimistic that I'll succeed in these three goals as well, with Hashem's help. 

I ask that my readers and friends be supportive of my decision, even if it doesn't align with their personal preferences. Know that any decision which helps me to be a better learner and a better writer is ultimately a good decision for all of us.

Thank you for your continued interest in my writing and teaching.