Or rather, that the blogger feels neglectful, I should say, since of course a blog can’t feel anything, so far as we know. (Ghost in the machine? An A.I. with an online journal? … What a different book William Gibson’s Neuromancer would have been if Wintermute had been blogging his -  or its – way through cyberspace. But I digress…)

What’s the big deal, after all? It’s not like there’s a rule saying you have to write so-and-so many blog posts per month. … Well, unless you’re doing a company blog of some kind and your job depends on how prolific you are with your postings. But for the rest of us, what’s it matter if a few weeks go by without an update? Or even a few months? (Or, for the truly slack, a few years?)

And yet, for me at least, it does matter. It feels somehow “wrong” to have a blog and not use it, to not make sure it stays “fresh” with new posts, whatever their content.

But why? FSM knows I don’t (yet) have that many regular readers, at least going by my (scarcity of) comments. Keeping a blog active is probably a good way to get more readers, of course, but is there another reason?

Is a more active blog more deserving of its existence? Do frequent postings somehow justify its presence in the blogosphere? I suppose you could say that a blog that’s not updated ceases to be a blog, in the strictest definition of the word. On the other hand, I’m sure there are plenty of blogs that – for a variety of valid reasons – no longer get new content (outlived their original purpose?) but that still have interesting & worthwhile posts archived from way back when. Still, I think there’s a difference between a blog that’s been permanently retired and one that just gets unintentionally forgotten; does the blog collecting dust in the proverbial corner not have just as much right to its little virtual life as any other?

If so, then why the guilt? It’s sort of similar to the situation you can find yourself in with friends you haven’t talked to in ages: sure, you feel bad, but as long as you do eventually call (or e-mail, or text, or whatever) and reconnect, isn’t it “all good”? Naturally, a blog is not quite the same as a living, breathing person (though see my comment about Neuromancer above) – and your blog can’t really be the one to initiate contact with you, unlike your longlost friends – but still, it’s similar.

Maybe what it’s really about is that, in posting infrequently, you feel you’re not helping your blog reach its full potential. … Actually, now that I think about it, the same might be said about infrequent contact between friends and the squandered potential of those friendships.

But that’s life, I guess, both for blogs and friendships. You do what you can and try to get on with it, dusting off that neglected thing in the corner and polishing it up even when you’re afraid that – after all this time – there might not be any shine left underneath.

Takes a while, but finally one particular line in the song sinks in and reinforces the message of what I’m reading: “Don’t wait until tomorrow.”

As January rolls forward and 2008 steadily increases its hold on our calendars, I have – like so many others – decided to take the beginning of yet another revolution around the Sun as an opportunity to make a (hopefully) lasting change in my life. This will be the year, I say, fully aware of the cliché; this year will be different, I predict, knowing as I do so that I’m echoing the thoughts of countless other individuals bent on a “fresh start.” This year, we all chirp in unison, this year we will be different.

And yet, here I have to go somewhat out of tune. Though I do want to be “different,” I’m not necessarily resolving to complete all my personal projects, work out more regularly, or pay off debts. Nor have I made up my mind to eat more healthily, get more sleep, or reduce stress. In fact, I’ve tried to not really make any definitive determinations about these or any of a myriad of other vague-but-worthwhile-sounding goals that probably resonate with most of the people out there.

Don’t get me wrong: these goals are all ones that I would very much like to achieve, even all this year if possible, at least partially. The thing is, though, these kinds of goals are all about being “better” in some way. And quite honestly, as a New Year’s resolution, I don’t think that will help me all that much.

So I’ve got another idea. Instead of resolving to be better in some area of my life, I resolve to completely forget about being better and to just go forward without hesitation.

I won’t worry – as I’ve so often tended to in the past – about whether or not I’m doing the best that can be done; I’ll just strive to do the best that I can do. I likewise won’t ever feel like I have to do something flawlessly the first time around; I’ll remind myself that pretty much everyone can find something they don’t like about themselves or their own work and I’ll accept that improvements usually can be and even have to be made, and I’ll be thankful for any chance to do so.

I won’t focus on what I don’t know, but instead will focus on what I do know, and I’ll rejoice in the fact that there’s so much more to learn; I similarly won’t think that I can’t do something until I know “enough” about a particular subject. I mean, sure, there are plenty of times when you can’t just get up and go, when you have to know something about what you’re doing before you can begin, but more often than not the best way to get that knowledge is to just brace yourself and dive in. I won’t be afraid to take my own advice and do the same, figurative mask and snorkel at the ready.

Finally, I definitely won’t feel like I have to do everything all at once. As many goals and dreams and plans as I might have, I’ll take things one at a time, and once and for all I’ll recognize that I can’t do anything until I start something; doing everything might be unrealistic but that’s no reason not to try.

And actually, in that last little independent clause we have in a nutshell the crux of my rather long and perhaps somewhat convoluted post. I am and have always been a perfectionist. When I do things, I want to do things well. Really well. But the perfectionist’s dilemma – my dilemma, too much of the time – is that the oft-quoted axiom that “practice makes perfect” is, actually, a lie.

“Perfection” is impossible, and if you take perfectionism too far, you’ll take that inescapable impossibility too much to heart and either never start something – because, hey, it (and/or you) will never be perfect, why bother? – or you’ll start but then not follow through. This can lead to ambitious projects being left on the backburner until blackened to a crisp and other nice-but-lofty goals left by the wayside and forgotten.

But no longer. Striving for perfection is, if you’ll pardon my language, damned counterproductive, and I want no part in it. This year, I will strive instead to just do, without the worry.

This year, I resolve to be imperfect.

So now, after spending much time fiddling with WordPress configuration options, reading documentation, and just generally figuring out what all I can do with this blog now that it’s finally up and running, I find myself forced to weigh my choices. Should I stay up and write the long and insightful post that I’d imagined as the key ritual of this “inauguration” of my wonderful and long-anticipated (by me, anyway) blog? Or should I give in and go to bed?

…

Yes, actually, I think I will have to go with the latter choice; bed it is.