Gap

My suit must be in the wash.

I have gone five days without making a post, which must be something of a record for this blog. Why the long gap? I'm so glad you asked, anonymous internet person who must in some way be different from an imaginary friend, although at the moment I can't think of a reason.

The main problem is that the biggest thing happening in both my personal and professional life at the moment is something I can't talk about publicly yet. I'm under a Non Disclosure Agreement, and if I talk about what's going on it could ruin the entire deal. Since most of my mental and emotional capacity is taken up with worrying about this event, I don't have a lot of energy left over to talk or think about anything else. Which is a bummer. Since this could go on for another two months, however, I'm going to have to figure out some sort of workaround.

My work ethic and creative energy also tend to come in cycles. I went through a hyper-creative spurt a couple of weeks ago and now am, apparently, in a trough. I wish my brain had controls I could understand, so I could peg the volume on "high" or something. I hate being at the mercy of my moods.

At the same time, my day job has gotten to be very frustrating, as my respect and admiration for some of my coworkers continue to plummet. I'm motivated almost entirely by a desire to please those around me, far more so than money or perks. When I lose respect for those around me, my performance suffers dramatically. If you want the best out of me, you have to be the kind of person I admire, respect, and want to make happy. Raises don't do it, trips don't do it, rewards don't do it. I have a psychotic need to earn the respect of those I admire, and it is the most persuasive and motivational coin I have ever encountered. Unfortunately, the flip side is that when I no longer admire you, I have to work a hundred times harder to get the same amount done. Granted, I still get a paycheck and they still get an honest day's work out of me, but it's not my best work and I can't fix it. It's a moral failing of mine, and one which I work at, but I am still unable to circumvent it as well as I'd like.

Finally, I've started to encounter some significant resistance from people in my life whom I love very much about some of the subjects I write about. Being accused of corrupting children because of my atheism is deeply, deeply troubling to me. In essence it's saying "Your very nature is bad for kids." I need to take some time to work through those implications before I can get back to those subjects, which has the unfortunate consequence of making me feel very, very unfunny and unable to see the humor in much of anything, so there goes the rest of what I post about.

I'm sure the cycle will reverse itself soon, as habits tend to do, and I'll be back to the usual posting schedule. I feel confident that both of my readers are waiting with bated breath, but I didn't want to go yet another day with no communication, for my own peace of mind if nothing else. I have a bad habit of retreating into silence when I'm unhappy, another personal failing I am trying hard to correct as I get older.