Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
Scott Adams (1957 – ), ‘The Dilbert Principle’
I wrote and published a post on Friday about the ‘pursuit of ends.’ It’s a vitriolic post about the current state of things in America, particularly as pertains to our economic system. It was a mistake. If you come to the site, it’s no longer there, but if you get the blog by RSS or email you’ve probably seen it. That’s fine, I wrote it and I meant it. But I didn’t mean to publish it, for a simple reason: it’s an angry political post, of the type I used to write (pre-2007) on brip blap in its earlier, political incarnation. I don’t think it’s a positive thing, and I’d like this blog to remain relentlessly positive (particularly since I have some big changes coming up).
It’s not that I don’t believe what I wrote – I do. I had put it in my drafts but didn’t realize I had scheduled a future publishing time, so it appeared. I got one angry comment from a reader – sorry, Chris, I assume you’re no longer a subscriber – which made me realize it had gone live. But even though I would stand by what I wrote, I just don’t want this blog to be too topical (i.e. looking at current events – I’d rather have ‘evergreen’ contents) and I don’t want it to be political.
If you follow me on Twitter (@bripblap) you’ll notice I’m fairly outspoken, sometimes harshly so, about politics. I’ve also written again and again on this blog about how I think watching the news – particularly political news – is not only unconstructive but actually anti-constructive. And I kick myself repeatedly for getting sucked back in, especially once the presidential election cycle ramps up.
So I allowed myself to make a mistake, and learned something from it. First of all, put my political thoughts in my political Tumblr – and second, even I don’t like reading my own political rants. That should tell me something.
