I’m beginning to form a deeper appreciation of the struggle that guys like  Kevin O’Keefe go through trying to keep propping this darn blawgosphere up in the face of impending malaise.  Pretty soon, Simple Justice is going to be one year old.  Someone mentioned recently that unlike most blawgers, whose enthusiasm wanes over time until it finally disappears, my posting has only gotten stronger and more prolific. 

In fact, more than a handful have had some fun at my expense about how I manage to post as much as I do.  While I know it’s not meant as an affront, some of the comments question what I do all day long that I have the time to keep up this blawg at the current pace.  What this really means is that others have trouble keeping up theirs, and can’t figure out how I find the time. 

The easy answer is that I just get things done.  Writing comes easily to me, and it’s a pleasure.  It just doesn’t take me anywhere as much time as it apparently takes others.  My work on behalf of my clients always comes first, but there are always a few minutes available to blawg.  It’s just not a problem for me.  In fact, I could easily post twice as much as I do now on quiet days or days when there are a ton of things that strike me as blawgworthy.  I don’t just to keep the rabble from biting my head off for being alarmingly prolific.

But I watch as blawgs that I read daily are beginning to enter the decline phase.  This is a downward spiral, that happens slowly, slowly, until day it dawns on you that the blawg isn’t just sleeping.  It’s passed…

Infusing interest and enthusiasm, as Kevin,  Susan and  Carolyn do so well, must be a tiring job.  I can’t imagine how many blawgs, and blawgers, between them, they’ve seen come on like a hurricane, and then ultimately lose their steam (note the mixed metaphor for pedagogical purposes). 

What am I talking about?  The blawgs that would post every day, or at least every other day, consistently bringing great ideas, or maybe just funny stuff, but creating a sense of vibrancy and community in the blawgosphere.  Then the posts start to slow down.  Every few days.  Once a week.  Two weeks.  Frankly, it more than disappointing, but almost depressing, to go to a blawg and see nothing new day after day.  It’s like looking at the storefronts on Main Street and seeing them shuttered, one after another.

I go back every day in anticipation of finding some bit of genius, only to find there’s nothing new at all.  And the next day.  And the next. And then I don’t go back to look.  And then it falls off my radar. 

In the Darwinian world of the blawgosphere, not everyone will survive.  Not everyone can find the time, or maintain the level of interest.  For some, this is just such tedious work that whatever pleasure came from expression wasn’t worth the effort.   It’s not for everyone.

My comments to Kevin, which he fought valiently though not necessarily successfully to dispel, that most new blawgs will fade into oblivian within a year, are coming to pass.  But I’m not talking now about the self-promotional blogs.  I never gave them a lot of credit because I doubted that these erstwhile bloggers would find the outcome sufficient to justify the effort.  But the practical blawgosphere people, the ones who post for fun and love about real things.  Some are drifting off as well, and I hate to see this happen.

But if there’s nothing on your blawg for a few days, a week, longer, then what am I to think?  If you don’t mean to blow this off, then get off your duff and get back to blawging.  Besides, I miss you guys.  Who else can I make fun of someone who isn’t close enough to hit me?