I didn't reference the idea of "writing as thinking" in this post, but perhaps I should have. It's undoubtedly important to have something to say strictly in the context of responding to or analyzing a particular situation, but the extra element that separates writing in the TOA sense from writing in the journalistic sense is my willingness to work out what I think through the process of writing. One problem with examining the question solely through the lens of having something to say is how such an approach dismisses the possibility of discovering something to say - in many cases, the link between writing and thinking emerges after the pen hits the paper. If I rule out working on a certain subset of topics, what it means is that I am ruling out access to the thinking that is enabled by writing about those topics.
The flip side is that perhaps the recent trend reflects a change in what I'm willing to think about, whether in writing or not. The common problem in the early days of TOA was "which of these things should I write about?" but these days this consideration has given way to "what is there to write about?". Initially this change was somewhat alarming but I'm starting to realize that perhaps this merely reflects my state of mind in 2016 - back then, there was so much I simply had never thought deeply about, so diving in via writing was an enticing option. Now that we are well into year six (!) of TOA, I'm finding myself encountering two constraints with increasing regularity - first, that I have fewer obvious topics remaining to think about; second, that each remaining topic demands a far higher level of thinking relative to the 2016 standard. These considerations both lead to the same effect on the time commitment - I first need more time to select a topic, and then I need more time to write about it.
But I suppose in another way this doesn't really change anything. It's always been true that when it comes to this form of writing, the time to start is when I'm ready to think, and when I have nothing left to think about then it's time to stop. It's unavoidable that the process is going to look different from time to time, especially in terms of both the frequency and construction of the posts, but if I resist the temptation to overanalyze the main concept is the same as always. What that means for now is a change to the pattern or expectation for TOA, but that should be OK - it's why we have email notifications for new posts. There are some current features that I might retain in some capacity - for example, I'll likely continue holding the longer posts for Sundays - but I think for the most part things will go up on TOA when they are ready to go up. Ultimately, this feels like the reason why I said the worst thing for a blog is a schedule - when you put a frame around something, it quickly goes from supportive to restrictive, and when the goal is better thinking there is nothing as detrimental as a restriction.
