Blogging means different things to different bloggers. For me it’s a channel for expressing my thoughts to others, but simultaneously it’s a tool that forces me to sharpen my own thoughts. However, as much pleasure as I get from writing (despite several books and a few hundred articles), there is work involved, work requiring mental energy and focus. My wife has occasionally had to remind me I’m retired, for this is not intended to be a job. I really don’t want the pressure of deadlines. Further, even though I sometimes write on a topic that a reader has requested, I try to remember not to feel obligated to write on anything that isn’t springing from my own heart and mind.
I’ve found that life’s disturbing occasions affect my energy and focus, as they do for everyone. Unless I have one or two posts in reserve, emotional events can result in longer intervals between posts. For example, in April this year my wife and I spent time in Greece helping with stranded Middle Eastern refugees. In September there was an untimely and life-altering death in the family. In early November the presidency election brought depressive worries about the country. Each occasion, in addition to other emotional considerations, brought its own writer’s block. Those effects are yet to completely subside.
Topics I want to get to as soon as I can include subjects like these: Humanism—why our ways of treating each other are far more important than our beliefs in Allah, Jehovah, Jesus, or any other of humanity’s deities. Faith and fact—how we tell one from the other as well as how often we really don’t want them distinguished, whether in religion or politics. Aweism—the attitude of outright awe about this amazing universe and our equally amazing creation of beauty that may be far more important than the questions of atheism/theism, politics, money, and other factors in our lives. Unbelievers’ beliefs—how no one really believes in nothing, including the most belligerent atheist. I’ll share mine. Human rights—what they are, where they come from, and the myth of being “god given.” Science—the illusion of science as a body of knowledge. Empty words—vacuous terms (like “political correctness”) in politics, religion, and other endeavors. “Nones”—the growing number of Americans who check NONE when asked about their religion.
There are more and they press on me. I am eager to get past this lassitude and back to my insistent keyboard again; it cries out at me unforgivingly.
John just thinking . . . . 
I understand the limitations that “disturbing occasions” put on writing; on the other hand, for me it is sometimes those very occasions that prompt me to write. Odd, isn’t it? I look forward to your writing on these subjects whenever the words are finally birthed in your mind.
It is odd. I don’t know why one stressful event stimulates thoughtful writing and another shuts it down. The difference isn’t so simple as severity of the experience, as your and my situations indicate. Moreover, it might not even be predictable in the sense that the effect of a similar later situation would go the same direction. As to “words finally birthed” in my mind, that might not be forthcoming. After getting your comment, I’ve thought about it, but I’m not any wiser than when I began. Ah, enlightenment is as elusive as inspiration.