I’ve been spinning my wheels here for weeks.
It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I have. Thousands and thousands of words. Actually kind of an embarrassing amount of writing. Like, I have the opposite of writer’s block and it’s becoming something of a problem because I’m constantly a little bit distracted by the things I’ve been writing.
But I can’t hit “publish.” I can’t do it. And the reason why comes down to a real philosophical thing I’ve been struggling about with this blog.
I’ve been trying to be topical for the past month or so. To report, as much as comment. To bring some of the things that are important to me as a parent — feminism, politics, media criticism — into this space and somehow make them all work. They’re important topics, and I’ve been writing about important issues that will affect my girls’ lives as they grow up. The Ghomeshi verdict, for example. The harassment of women in the tech industry. The media reaction to Black Lives Matter Toronto. The fact that Canada is actually going ahead and selling arms to Saudi Arabia, my feelings about which can be adequately summed up by CJ in The West Wing.
Thousands and thousands of words, folks. Important words, I think, valuable takes on the topics and how I as a parent interact with them, but they can’t live here.
I’m paralyzed by the idea of a Halloween costume build and a goofy stop-motion short living side by side with a 1800-word editorial on how a judge took it upon himself to shame victims of sexual assault in the same breath as he said how inappropriate doing so would be.
I’m scared about the prospect of a post about making a craft showing up in the feed next to a screed about how it is impossible, utterly impossible, for me to feel comfortable with the idea of my girls becoming part of the gaming community after #buttgate and Alison Rapp. I even did some fun art for that one, too, before I wrote a couple thousand homeless words about it which are now going into a folder I’m labeling “Not For Here.”
(Art which I’m sharing because art. Also to publicly shame myself for the overly-aggressive burn-dodge on these characters, which makes everything look a little bit beveled instead of shaded, and to remind myself not to do that again. Ick.)
The takeaway here is that I don’t and have never wanted this to be topical and hard-hitting with this blog. I want to be the kind of person who tackles those issues, and I usually am. My day job literally involves promoting ethical action.
But you know what? This just isn’t the place for that. This is the place to celebrate the love in my family, to embrace the simple joy of creation, and to share those experiences and lessons. That’s not to say it’s going to be all fluff, all the time. Real life is messy sometimes. I’ll undoubtedly address that going forward. But it’s a good time to remind myself what the point is here.
Love. Make. Share. Repeat. And don’t chase what the rest of the internet is shouting about, because it’s not necessarily going to fit that bill.
As always, folks, paddle your own canoe.
Trevor
