Two days off the blog really got me thinking about why I'm still doing this. "Why?" is a question that people have been asking me since just after I started blogging, nearly five years ago. I had some reasons that I gave then, and I have some now, but lately I'm having trouble getting them out of my mouth without noticing how hollow they are starting to sound. Meanwhile, there have always been good reasons to stop, and none of them have gone away. The old cliche, costs and benefits. You think and you weigh, but if you're me, there's a limit to how much analyzing you do. I almost always wind up going with my gut.

Bill McDonald's words of exactly a month ago, when he shut down the Portland Freelancer, raise the issue in terms that I can't improve on:

This blog world is fun but I believe that it's beginning to do me harm.... The break-in of my house this week was a reminder of the fleeting nature of opportunity. There is a limited amount of time to get it together, so I've got to return to the path.... I once wrote a song called, "Out From the Underground": The first lines were: "When I get out from the underground, I'm going to take a look around. This invisibility is doing weird things to me." Well, I've had my look around, and now I want to go back. I've got a project I've got to do, and I want to put everything into it.... I've got some life homework and I've been putting it off, and it's sort of understandable. Learning has become harder as I get older. I actually can still write pretty fast at times, but I only have a limited amount of energy in a day and I can't waste it. I've got to work on my new project. Blogging was fun, but I've got something I've got to do. Of course, the Portland Freelancer reserves the right to return at any time. Quitting things like this can take several attempts, but for now, I am so gone.

That "life homework" line, like so many that Bill penned on his wonderful blog, hit the nail right on the head. In my corner of the world right now, a lot of those same feelings are knocking around. I'm coming to some new realizations about what I've got at stake, and how little time there really is in any given day to take care of the most important business. All this blogging, as marvelous and empowering and potentially valuable and fun as it may be, can only get in the way.

I think things are going to have to be different on this site now. There's a project or two I want to finish out of all the topics I've been covering here lately, but the pace and the focus are going to have to change. It's time to ratchet back down from a passion to a light hobby, if that's possible given my personality. Another option is just to turn the darn thing off, leaving this as an archive site, at least for a while.

Obviously, I'll keep mulling all this over as the week goes on. No reason to rush. I've turned the comments off on this post, because if you have any thoughts on the matter that are truly intended for me, you can e-mail them to me here. If there's something that you'd like to say about it in public, you're going to have to do that elsewhere. As wonderful as it can often be, on this topic a public conversation with strangers on the internet is not what I'm looking for.

UPDATE, 12:51 p.m.: Thanks to those who have so quickly written me words of support and encouragement. They are appreciated.