working through the backblog
As is tradition at the end of one (Gregorian) year and looking forward into the next, I’ve been considering my accumulated lists, the projects underway but as yet uncompleted and projects waiting to be considered. I’ve written about the various projects, like the annual reading project and indeed projects in general.
Aikido is an ongoing project, and one that’s been difficult over the course of 2020, given the restrictions on physical contact and distance, and the challenge there has been maintaining contact with aikido without being able to maintain much in the way of contact with other aikidoka. We’ve done as well as we could, I think, with massive thanks for the others in the club, and I think it’s reasonable to say that my jo and bokken work is a bit better.
One of the habits I’ve acquired over time, perhaps related to daily journaling, is keeping track of the small ideas that pass through the brain over the course of a day, set off perhaps by something I’ve read or a conversation, or something whispered into my ear by a passing imp. And some of those ideas, which I track on their own page, are those ideas that make up what I sometimes refer to as the backblog.
I had lost track of just how long I’ve been posting these (hopefully) entertaining bits of randomness, or quite how many I’d composed over that time. Looking back over them, and I (almost ironically) can’t remember whether I’ve written about this before, there are themes that recur over time, themes that I started but didn’t then continue. And so one possible project, should I find myself (ha ha) lacking a project, would be to go back and work through both of the back blogs, the blogs not yet written but also the themes begun but not yet completed.
I can also see that I’ve become inconsistent in terms of the timing of the blog, and so looking ahead to the year to come, I don’t want to overpromise. Working through the whole of the back blog would be, I think, an overpromise, given that we don’t yet know for certain what shape 2021 will take, but I can try and be more consistent in my timings, with an aim towards writing on some topic once per week.
So why am I even writing this? In part, I think, to set the stage for the year to come, as part of the process of Gregorian reflection. In part, because I think that setting down my plans for the year has an almost talismanic power to convert words and intentions into actuality. And on that point, we will just need to see what the year to come will bring.
multijimbo 