We Are Not Amused

Okay, so things have been awfully quiet around here for a while. A long while. Three years since I posted with any frequency, but, hey, who’s counting?

I miss Outer Life. Many times I’ve tried to start it up again, but my attempts would end in failure, either a stillborn piece that went nowhere or, worse, a piece that got posted but should have been stillborn.

While trying once again to reignite the spark, yesterday I did something I haven’t done before: I scrolled through the archives and re-read some of the posts I wrote back when this place was humming.

I liked most of what I read. Some of it made me cringe, but a lot of it held up well, if I may be so immodest. I remembered how easy it was to write these pieces, that wonderful feeling of a long piece flowing from my fingertips in real time. A feeling I haven’t had in three years.

And reading these pieces, it became clear to me why I can no longer write them: I am no longer the person who wrote those pieces. When Outer Life started I was more self-absorbed than I am now. I’d spent much of my first four decades trying to figure out the world around me. Then, right around the time I started Outer Life, my curiosity turned inward. What fascinated me was me. While that lasted, posts flowed. Then I turned away from the mirror and went back to looking out the window. And the posts stopped flowing.

My muse left me. Very unamusing.

It’s a bit odd that a website called Outer Life doesn’t work when its author looks outside his life. But then that title wasn’t chosen because it made any sense.

I’m not sure what to do. I have the desire to do something, but I’m not sure there is anything I can do. Scrolling through the archives I noticed that my earliest posts were, if anything, even weaker than my more recent posts. Perhaps, I thought, if I embraced my current awfulness, made peace with the rudderlessness, and just got the site going again, maybe I’d find that groove again. Or at least another groove.

I also did something very uncharacteristic for me: I started an Outer Life Twitter account. I have no idea what I will do with it, but being desperate I’m willing to try anything to kick-start the creativity.

So, I’m loathe to promise anything, but if there’s anyone out there still reading this, I’ll beg your indulgence as I start throwing words at the canvas, hoping some will stick.