Addressing The Rut.

Seems like a bunch of bloggers are feeling it lately:

The Rut.

Maybe it’s because summer is ending.

Maybe it’s because we feel like we’ve said it all already.

Maybe it’s just a lack of time or energy, after our 40-hour work weeks and weekend shenanigans and homework and hanging out with our “IRL” friends, to put any of it down in black and white.

Maybe it’s because we’ve convinced ourselves that contentment isn’t always the most interesting thing to write about (see Ev’Yan’s post about her “literary laryngitis”).

Maybe some of us are going through stuff that makes us feel more vulnerable than we’re comfortable with, and we just can’t bring ourselves to delve into it on our blogs.

Maybe we’re discouraged by how successful or popular or funny or intelligent or inspiring so many other people’s blogs are, and we feel like we’ll never measure up.

Maybe it’s because we tried to start a new project, then quickly realized we were in over our heads with the one(s) we already try to maintain.

Maybe it’s none of these reasons.

Maybe it’s all of them.

Whatever the reason…it SUCKS, right? And not just in the “poor, pitiful me” sense of the word. I mean, it is literally SUCKING the will to write out of us. The will to share. The will to let other people in, or to reach out, or to entertain, or to remember. It sucks the fun out of blogging, doesn’t it? I mean, if you really try to get down to the bottom of it, to the source of  The Rut, everything comes into question. Motives. Issues. Insecurities. Priorities.

Sometimes you wish you could go on, unaware of The Rut. Just live life, and blog when you feel like it. Post a pointless meme and not feel like a slacker. Gripe about trivial things and not beat yourself up for being Debbie Downer. Sometimes you just want your blog to be that old LiveJournal you used in high school, simply a place to keep your word vomit, rather than a place where people came to be inspired.

Sometimes you wish you could go on, unaware of The Rut. And sometimes you can…

Until you read a couple of introspective posts or tweets from the people who are in The Rut and had to go and admit it, and make you think for a second about why you haven’t been such a great blogger lately, either.

Damn you, people. I almost managed to completely ignore The Rut, but now that I know it’s there, I have to address it. I have to evaluate myself and find out how many of those Maybes up there are my Actuallys. And then I have to make a change.

Maybe I’m not ready to deal with the Maybes right now…

Maybe I’m okay with staying in The Rut for a little while.