I've been feeling really guilty about not posting more regularly. Previous posts were from thoughts I had had previous to starting this thing up, and I was worrying that I just wasn't having good enough thoughts any more. Nothing of great intrinsic value, anyway.
Then I started looking at other blogs and realized that mostly they're about things other people have bumped into and found, rather than what they have created. I'm not sure if that's what I'm going to do, but perhaps I shouldn't feel too guilty about not being deep and meaningful at least once a week.
I've also wanted to start doing several projects, pulling my limited time in a bunch of different directions. The only thing stopping me is that I am afraid that I will suck at any and all of them. It's a common problem with the beginning of any project and is hardly worth the effort to mention it. This is a variant of why I'm not blogging as often as I have in the past - fear of not being as great as I think I should be.
But the closing of the woodshop has in several ways liberated me. I've already 'failed' at something big and important. Sure, it was a qualified failure, and it has left me in a better position, and I wonder at times why I bothered - but it feels like a failure all the same. And yet I survive. I haven't really lost any clients through this. I've lost a lot of obligations. It's like the first time you take a shot to the nose: it hurts, but not as bad as you imagined. And after that, a fist isn't as frightening.
Secondly, now I have more time to consider what else I might do. Before, any time not spent on work was potentially cheating not just myself, but a number of employees who depended on me. So any personal work of any real scope was tainted with guilt. I could sketch, but I couldn't draw - not really. The time it takes to finish a drawing was too self-indulgent compared to the needs of the company. So not only do I have more free time, but that time is entirely my own. I don't have to validate it to anyone except maybe my wife, and she is very supportive. It may be illusory, but it feels like I'm getting more done in the last two months than I had in the previous year.
And lastly, it has provided a better sense of scope. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I was feeling guilty about not posting, and worried about the quality of my posts. But frankly, as far as I can tell, no one reads any of this, so I can spout gibberish and it wouldn't matter. It's essentially a journal meant for me, to put down recurring thoughts that I want to record but have no other forum for. It's a vain hope that in a decade I'll look back and think I wasn't a complete couch potato. It isn't obvious how losing the shop ties in with that, but I'll try to explain. Toward the end, as things were becoming more and more of a struggle, my dreams about expanding the business were overshadowed by concerns for just keeping it going. The future looked bleaker and bleaker, and only a gordian solution kept us out of eventual bankruptcy. My previous optimism had been replaced by a sense of overwhelming pessimism and I was becoming more cynical and serious. But now I am feeling a dawning optimism again. My wife has noted it as well, in terms of my joking around more and generally being more outgoing and social. This blog is something of a reflection of that. But so is my failure to regularly post - because I'm picking up a lot of those scattered and abandoned projects and dusting them off. So dear imaginary reader, please forgive my tardiness. I have other things to do, places to be, people to see. And I wouldn't want it any other way.
