I am not a news-oriented guy. Most things in life can wait.
I don't need to stay up to watch the election returns. They don't affect my life directly, and I can read all about it in the morning -- or a week later. In certain municipal elections, I've done a little research and talked with some friends and then cast my vote -- and I never do bother to find out who won. I did my little bit to change the outcome, but knowing the outcome wasn't important to me.
I'm not without passion. When the email was due to tell me whether I'm going to get another date with that intriguing young woman, I'll stay up to read it, and read it at once, and be happy or sad according to the message.
If some scandal unfolds, one approach is to listen to the news reports about it, two or three times a day for a few weeks. They are repetitive, full of speculation, and sometimes wrong. Part of the story is who speculated on what when. If you wait two years and read a book on the subject (or even the Wikipedia article), you'll learn far more for far less investment of time.
If there's an earthquake on the other side of the planet, I will usually do little more than scan the headlines. I don't need to claim as my own all the sufferings of the world. Nor do I like to select the issues I get concerned with based on news reports. Often the quiet problems are the ones that cause more suffering and can be addressed more effectively.
So what does all that have to do with my blog? I am no more enthusiastic about creating news than I am about consuming it. If I've said it once, I'm reluctant to say it again. The blog stands as more a collection of essays than as news. The down side is that I have a blog that is updated only sporadically, and I'm just not with the program of bloggers. The up side is that if someone wants to know what I (one thoughtful pedophile) think on a subject, he or she can likely find it without wading through thickets of repetition, spin, and self-promotion.
If someone was paying me to promote my views, I'm sure they would pressure me to do all that repetition, spin and self-promotion. But no one is. So what you see is what you get. And what you don't see is missing for a reason.
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