I started blogging when I was too ill to do anything else and I had always wanted to write in any case.  Blogging is also a very good way of learning stuff because it is a way of testing half formed ideas.  Increasingly I am also getting frustrated because blogging can also become a way of avoiding doing stuff in the real world.  So things are a bit in the balance at the moment in terms of what I want to do for my next project.  The kids are getting older and my input there is required less and less.  

I see blogging as a two way process - as a talking with an on-line community - so it can't just be about self expression or writing into a vacuum. It also has to be about meeting felt needs at some end of the universe.  Right now the things which bother me are the economic and political melt-down in Ireland - so many people are losing their jobs; what I see as an ossification of the European project; and what I sense as a failure of "progressive cyberspace" in Europe to connect to the "real world" of opinion makers, political leaders, and popular culture.   I am part of that failure.  A whole generation has been let down - badly - and although I could see it coming, partly, I could do nothing effective about it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Meaning well doesn't cut it for me any more, but political effectiveness when you have never felt comfortable within the political culture and don't have political skills is also not an easy task.  So for the moment I play around with ideas, write a few LTEs and work for a few voluntary organisations.  The blogging is becoming a distraction.  Like a lot of people here I think it may be time to move on.  No doubt others will join up to keep the place going if some people want to keep it going.  A bit of turnover can be healthy.  Blogging is supposed to be fun. When you stop enjoying it its a sign that you're past your sell-by date and its time to leave the fun to others.

I'll still be lurking occasionally and perhaps publishing if inspiration beckons.  But the focus must increasingly be else where.

notes from no w here