Yet time after time, I find myself making these very involved Facebook responses, yet falling short of those extra five inches that I’d have to go to make them articles on my own blog instead. This made me wonder – why do I keep putting this energy into these involved Facebook comments which only serve to increase Facebook’s grip on the Internet, and which will go to the bit-bucket should someone else choose to delete the thread that I am responding to, or even delete my comment specifically? Why do that when I could instead make the involved response into an article on my blog and simply provide a link to said article in the thread in question?
Of course, some Facebook groups have policies that might prohibit people from doing this – but such issues account for few if any of the involved responses of mine that I fail to turn into blog articles. Genereally, it is something else that prevents me from doing this – and which also in-general prevents me from updating my blog as regularly as I’d like.
Then, very recently, I was diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum. As I came to understand what this means, so many mysterious difficulties that I face in life suddenly started to make sense. Everything from my difficulty keeping my apartment in a presentable order to difficulties with social interactions became demystified. And I wondered – could this have anything to do with why it is so difficult for me to keep my blog updated, and could this knowledge maybe even pave the way to a solution?
As I discussed this with my counselor, it became clear one way in which Autism could make updating my blog more difficult – that being a tendency of those of us on the spectrum to be over-perfectionist at times. This explanation seemed to work for just about every instance I could think of in which I had material with which I could have updated my blog but didn’t, whether it be one of those involved Facebook responses or something else that I had mind to write about. Perhaps I had composed a fine Facebook response, but was intimidated by the extra introductory passage that I’d have to write for it to make sense outside the context of the threaded discussion. Or perhaps, at times, I was simply holding what I wrote to a higher standard of finesse when determining whether it was worthy of my blog than whether it was acceptable as a response in a Facebook thread. This overly-perfectionist attitude was also at times what made it so darn difficult to write the extra context-clarifying introduction to whatever I had written.
Or maybe something that I had available to write about (whether as a Facebook response or inspired from any other source) was too “off-brand” for me. Granted, concern with staying on-brand is a bit irrational for a blog of this sort. But when one gets into blogging and learns the trade of blogging, one thing that is stressed is finding your “voice” or “niche” – in short, what defines your brand of blogging. Granted, something like “I blog about whatever I have something to say about this time” may not be the most professionally viable brand-theme imaginable – but it is certainly a superior brand-theme to something like “I update my blog maybe once or twice a year because that is how often I can find something sufficiently ‘on-brand’ to write about”.
Granted, a lot of these difficulties in blogging are not unique to people on the Autism spectrum – however, they can on average affect people on the Autism spectrum a bit more than they might affect neurotypical people. But enough on the causes of my difficulties blogging, regardless of the degree to which Autism is involved. What is the solution? What can I do about this?
I asked my counselor if it would be a good idea to committing myself to the assignment of updating my blog twice a week. He asked if I thought I was up to it. My answer was that I suggested the figure of twice a week because I am certain that I will have no problem updating it that frequently as long as I do not allow concerns over quality and brand-consistencey get in the way.
The question is – can I keep those concerns from thwarting me? At any time, I am certain that I can update my blog regardless of these factors. But the little dysfunctional Jimminy Cricket at the back of my head will chirp disapproval at me every time I do so – and this could affect my allotment of spoons. No, by “spoons” I don’t mean the literal eating utensils. The term is also used to refer to that energy resource that people use every time that they do something that is difficult for them albeit technically not impossible – a resource that fully-abled neurotypical people generally have with sufficient plentitude to not worry about, but which other people, including those on the Autism spectrum, do face a very real danger of exhausting.
Every time I make a post to my blog that doesn’t meet unreasonable quality standards or unreasonable brand-consistency standards, due to my dysfunctional Jimminy Criciket, I risk expending an inordinate amount of spoons. The question is – can I learn to silence this cricket enough to keep the spoon expendature low enough that I can fulfill my self-imposed assignment.
I have decided to update my blog twice a week. Can I do it?
Keep it up!