Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
I hate to do this.
I’ve been struggling to build this blog up for a year and a half; just recently – and not without much begging – I’ve had some good fortune with links from other bloggers and seen my traffic climb from a handful of much-treasured regulars to about 100 hits a day. As pathetic as that is, it was progress, and I was getting more excited about trying to reach out further.
In the meantime, the rest of my life has been circling the drain for a decade or more, and is starting to pick up speed. For those who don’t know, I have been “on leave” (i.e., they haven’t seen me in years) from a doctoral program where I specialize in bioethics. But I need to finish that program to have any real place in this profession – blogging isn’t it. And I desperately need to do something about my negative cashflow situation. Spending all day reading blogs and working up one lengthy post has become another way to avoid doing the things I really need to be doing but don’t really like. Several of my friends have made pointed comments to that effect, and some have threatened to take over my blog if I don’t get my shit more in order.
Most importantly, I’m up against a deadline for making some important, possibly very valuable, moves in my career – predicated on my doing something serious about the PhD I’ve been bogged down on for years now. And as much as I don’t like to see it, this blog is essentially an end in itself, but is blocking my way to other things that serve more important ends. So, some serious prioritizing is in order.
I’ve decided to put Sufficient Scruples on the back burner, for a while at least. Already, I’m only making an average of 4-6 posts per week, but simply thinking that I should be posting every day is enough to eat up my time. So I’m going to cut back to 1-2 posts per week, maybe mostly on weekends.
It hurts to let this go, and to think about what I know this will do to my traffic volume. In particular, I feel like I’m letting down the few regulars who have been coming by. I want to thank you for all the interest and support you’ve shown. Be aware that this is in service of something that means a lot more to me personally, and will also let me play a bigger role in the issues we both care about. But I’m sorry to be running out on you.
Do come by every week or so, please! I will still post content here, but it will be much lower in volume. I’ll try to make it up in quality. And feel free to e-mail me. I rarely hear from readers, but I’d like to. As for you lurkers out there (yes, you at the American Physical Society with your two-hour browsing times – and you at the megachurch down in Dallas who’s been coming by every day for weeks – and the many others), say hello! I don’t know who you are (Sitemeter gives me your IP address but can’t know your username, so don’t worry), but I’m very glad to see you on the blog; feel free to drop me a line at the “Contact” link above.
Thanks to everyone who does or has read this blog; thanks to all those who have commented or e-mailed or linked; thanks especially to those who cared enough about me personally to offer feedback on the larger context it sits in. I hope you won’t disappear, as I won’t, but I’ll be sorry to see less of you from now on.
Best wishes.
12 Responses to “Blöggerdämmerung”
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August 10th, 2006 at 1:30 PM
It’s a shame that the quantity of content will drop, especially given how I enjoy the topics that are brought up here, but I fully appreciate the need to use your time effectively. I hope that you are able to focus on your PhD as much as you’d like, and that you are successful at prioritisation. Good luck!
August 10th, 2006 at 2:24 PM
I’m glad to hear you’re not closing the blog completely. I don’t frequent here as much as I would like, but always try to catch up to current postings. If the quality of the posts will increase from this point forward, that can only mean good things.
I do wish that extremists from any side could moderate themselves enough to at least debate these issues rationally. Thank you for providing a sane context to these debates.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:38 PM
Good for you, Kevin. GOOD FOR YOU!!!
August 10th, 2006 at 4:12 PM
Good for you . . .
Yeah, yeah.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:37 AM
Having tread water in grad school way longer than I wish I had before finally finishing, I totally support your decision. You are doing what you have to do, and just think how much street cred you’ll gain for your very intelligent posts/writing once you have that piece of paper in hand. Get that degree done . . . you won’t regret it!
August 11th, 2006 at 8:08 AM
You can do it, Kevin! Good luck with the PhD…
August 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 AM
Hey
I’ve been reading your blog for about a year. I’m an ethics Ph.D. student in France and your blog was very interesting for me (although you posted too much for me to read everything, and I often wondered : How can one post so much lengthy and well-written information ? Now I know.) I especially learned a lot about Kass and the Council on Bioethics.
Thanks for everything and good luck for your professional issues
Lucas
August 26th, 2006 at 12:00 PM
Kevin, I’ve enjoyed this blog as well as your posts to the WBP blog–always thoughtful, well reasoned, well written. So yeah: you need to go get the Magic Ticket that will let you into the game at the level where you belong.
Best wishes . . . from a bioethics MA trying to settle on a discipline for the PhD, for the same reasons.
Sue
August 29th, 2006 at 12:23 PM
Oh Kevin!! I know that feeling… I have procrastinated for years, looking for many other ways to fill my time rather than get down to the nitty gritty of my doctoral thesis and face that bogged down feeling. I am in the end months now and spending more time on it. It gets easier eventually! Anyway, I haven’t been here that often but I enjoy what you write and your passion for your chosen subjects. If you can manage only one post per week that would still be grand! Thanks for all your hard work and very best wishes for your future success. Pippa x
September 14th, 2006 at 4:53 PM
Kevin, best wishes from a fellow procrastinator. I’ll keep on dropping by.
December 18th, 2006 at 8:12 AM
Hi Kevin,
I hope your efforts bear good fruit in abundance. I’ll look for you here, and not TGW!
February 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 PM
[...] About a year and a half ago, I posted that I was cutting back on blogging to devote more time to other work, especially to finishing my graduate degree. That continues, but I was shocked to find I hadn’t posted anything at all in about 6 months. So herewith a couple of quick hits. I’m still far from swamped with time for blogging, but I wanted to at least keep my hand in. [...]