A critical point

I've reached a critical point in my Blip life. Despite all the Blips I've deleted, I'm nearing 300 blips, and I want to be more conscious of what I'm doing, more mindful. I began in May, 2010, enticed to join by Berelaxed. I was sporadic at best in the first year, but then Q8rdave gave me a gift membership, for which I am still grateful, and I've spent increasing hours on Blip during this second year. Now I have 73 subscriptions. One of those is Amalarian, whose journal I just can't delete, and a couple more are people who have stopped posting or post very rarely, so I suppose I should say 70 that I look at every day. I don't have an internet-phone, so I can't do comments while I'm standing in line somewhere. I sit down and do them at my laptop. I look at each day's post by each of those 70 people, look at all their links, read any comments they've received before mine so that I don't repeat what others have said, and try to comment in some original and thoughtful way on each one. If someone I'm not subscribed to comments on my journal, I go to their journal and comment, say thank you, look through their last five or six posts. The time I spend writing Blip comments and looking at journals has edged up gradually till it's five to seven hours a day. It's a full-time job. Fortunately I'm retired, but there are some things I want to do with my life that I'm not doing. Add to that the time it takes to shoot pictures, process them, and write my own blip, and I'm pressed for time to meet a friend for lunch, to work for social justice, to read, or even to watch the occasional movie. I don't write poems or stories these days because I'm not quiet long enough for my mind to settle down. It seems all my creative energy is going here.

I can't keep this up. One person said to me recently that she never comments on more than ten blips a day. Does she go through subscriptions alphabetically and pick up the next day where she left off? Another person said he gives himself an hour in the morning and an hour at night, in addition to the time he spends preparing his own blip. Does he have a few he does every day? How does he draw the line?

I've decided to ask you. How do you manage your time on Blip? How much time do you spend? DebC posted a blip about being obsessed with Blip, back in January; after that she took a long blip-break. I think I'm not clinically obsessed (although how does one know?); it's rather that I try to do everything I do, as well as I can do it. I've had many people tell me over the years, "This doesn't deserve your best effort." One of my professors when I was in grad school told me in frustration, "I can't give you anything higher than an A! Stop already!" I suppose it is accurate to say that I'm thorough and persistent. I don't want to call Blip an addiction, because as Sherry Turkle says, addiction is something you have to quit. Pilipo has given me a gift subscription for next year, and I want to stay here and enjoy it. But I don't want it to be a full-time job. So if you have the time and inclination, and if you have a system or an approach that works for you, I'd be interested to hear what it is. I think I'll skip posting a new Blip tomorrow so I can take time to think about this. Maybe I'll give it a rest for a week or so.

Several people asked for a link to my article on State Harassment. It appears in today's Portland Occupier.

I just heard, much to my sorrow, that a woman who inspired me deeply by her work and her life, Adrienne Rich, has died. There's a great spirit gone. She was one of my teachers. One of her poems I especially love is here.