I think I know why I don’t blog very much. I either have hyper-focus or super-wide focus.

Hyper-focus is for technical ideas. Currently, I put almost all of my hyper-focus effort into work, which is usually both private and overly technical (read: boring). I’ve got another blog for technical writing, but I never blog there, either. If I worked on something open source, or if I did user-level design, I’d probably be more of a mind to write about it. I don’t want to talk about the research and new development work I do, because it gives my company a competitive advantage. And I’m not comfortable expressing my opinions about our products from a user point of view. I don’t know enough about them, and it’s not where my enthusiasm lies.

Wide focus is for philosophy, social commentary, and cultural criticism. Also boring to the vast majority of people, but more importantly, I’m not even amateur rank in the areas I’m exploring. At best, I can mention what I’m reading about, maybe summarize some of the ideas. I haven’t encountered anything new, lately. Mostly I’ve been reading predictions about how various resource depletion issues may affect our civilization in the next ten to a hundred years. I’ve grown wary of predictions, after reading so much science fiction for so long. The only thing I have any confidence in is the ability of the future to defy all expectations.

I don’t spend cycles on in-between stuff. I read a lot but don’t seem to form the right kind of opinions for sharing. Medium-level stuff just isn’t important enough to get excited over. And I hate blogging about my personal life. I’m only interested in writing about ideas. Medium-level stuff includes all those opinions about products, entertainment and special interest politics which fills up almost everything out in the blog-o-sphere. Medium-level stuff is what kills real progress in the ability of humans to understand their world better. Of course, the purpose (or aim or desire) of most human beings is not to understand their world better. But it is mine.

So, every time I try to think of something to write, I think “I’m not Google”. If people want to learn about something, they have other places to go.

And yet I like writing, and want to find something to write about, other than trying to find something to write about. I guess I just have to sit down to write more often. Maybe I’ll figure out my take on things in the middle.