What causes creativity crises?

Michael’s last week’s only seemingly dull posting prompted a jumble of comments not seen under other actually content-richer posts. Sympathetic readers rushed to gee up the crestfallen blogger, a gesture being a splendid symbol of appreciation of his efforts in writing. Hats off to Michael for exhibiting first symptoms of any crisis after nearly eight years of blogging. My track record of blogging is two years shorter and I have had to overcome crises several times.

Whenever people set up blogs, they are full of passion to run it, but usually after several months they lose heart. At first they post less frequently or notes are shorter. With time a blog no longer classifies as ‘regular’ (the generally agreed definition of ‘regularly kept blog’ is the one updated at least once a week), finally they give it up all along. Polish-English blogosphere, whose best days are apparently gone, has seen many demises of blogs, while there are ones still thriving.

So what makes people cease blogging? My first and foremost guess is running out of inspiration. It may sound like an insult, but the stuff an individual has to convey to the world is finite. It takes paying continuous attention to nuances of the surrounding world and passion to commit them to the blog. The other reason is being pre-occupied with mundane aspects of life. As time goes by, one often becomes overwhelmed by family and work duties and gets too tired or has too little time to keep up the blog. It happened to me when I took up a full-time job in July 2010. Before that I had some 20 hours a week of university classes and lots of time to write. Thereafter I found time for writing a longer note only during weekends, as in the most dreadful period of combing studies and work, in late 2010, I would leave home at 6:30 a.m. and returned home at 9:30 p.m. most days of the working week. Several times I thought of quitting, but I have always soldiered on and good form would sooner or later return and again I could draw pleasure from blogging.

Initially I also thought monotony and repetitiveness of life puts people off blogging. Having mulled it over and over again, I consider this guess wrong. At some stage of life monotony is inevitable, since it simply goes together with stability, being a part of an adult’s life. Blogging, as each and every other hobby, gives a chance to break away from monotony. Moreover, brilliant blogging will not do without eliciting the extraordinary out of the ordinary. It often takes sensitivity to small stuff most people fail to discern and it does not matter whether you take delight in a beauty of winter sunrise or dissect implications of a central bank’s policy. A smart blogger has broad horizons thanks to which they will easily find a topic to comment on…

And why have I written all the above? Shortage of time is to blame for failing to share my insight on another topic (six months into the new job), but I will try to catch up next Sunday… As my I have accustomed the readership to posting in regular intervals, always on Sundays, these brief reflections on blogging are meant to fill a gap that otherwise would have shattered my credentials ;-)

Roll on spring!