{"id":961,"date":"2015-02-02T21:15:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T03:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/?p=961"},"modified":"2015-02-02T21:15:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T03:15:45","slug":"blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/?p=961","title":{"rendered":"Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So here I am again, attempting yet another jumpstart of a blogging habit that has fizzled out with my previous attempts.  Sure, I can blame my usual excuse for not writing: the responsibilities and obligations of life intruding and keeping me from seducing my muse.<\/p>\n<p>But I can&#8217;t help but wonder if part of the reason is because I still&#8211;even now&#8211;find blogging masturbatory and self-important.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, I can&#8217;t deny or ignore the myriad merits of blogging.  Blogs have given writers from all walks of life with varying degrees of talent a venue to reach an audience as narrow or as wide as they want.  A writer&#8217;s paradise previously unknown.  And readers have benefitted as much as writers&#8211;if not more.<\/p>\n<p>Contemplating this made me wonder, of course, what it is that I could write about, what contribution I can make.  What unique perspective I can offer that might be of value&#8211;even if only to a handful of readers.<\/p>\n<p>One of my initial thoughts was that I could write about my experience as a dad managing my household of three kids (two of whom are teenagers) by myself.  So I started reading and researching parenting blogs written by fathers.  And while I appreciated most of what I read, I was a little disappointed&#8211;but not too surprised, unfortunately&#8211;to find that even parenting blogs didn&#8217;t seem to be immune from the back-and-forth bickering that characterizes many online interactions.  Though, to be fair, that kind of sniping was overwhelmingly far more the exception than the rule&#8211;and, in fact, parenting blogs seemed to be part of a supportive and productive online community.  The ideal, in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>Still&#8230; I couldn&#8217;t get past my original assessment of blogging: how masturbatory it seemed.<\/p>\n<p>And that led to my latest revelation.<\/p>\n<p>Which is that maybe that&#8217;s the point of blogging.  At least to some degree.<\/p>\n<p>That maybe the act of typing out some of my own thoughts, musings, and observations might help me declutter my seemingly perpetually cluttered brain.<\/p>\n<p>And the mere exercise of writing <em>something<\/em>&#8212;<em>anything<\/em>&#8211;could help me feel more productive and provide me with a sense of accomplishment. And even be therapeutic.<\/p>\n<p>So here I go again.<\/p>\n<p>Wish me luck&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So here I am again, attempting yet another jumpstart of a blogging habit that has fizzled out with my previous attempts. Sure, I can blame my usual excuse for not writing: the responsibilities and obligations of life intruding and keeping me from seducing my muse. But I can&#8217;t help but wonder if part of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimarusti.com\/scott\/artisticcustom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}