Back from Sabbatical

[Photo: joyfullmarketing.typepad.com]

Greetings my dear reader.

Wow, was that awesome! Two weeks away did wonders for my psyche. Nothing like an impromptu sabbatical from blogging to provide some added perspective. And it was perspective that I needed. For a while there, I felt like one of the things I had been relying on to help me through this process of simplification (blogging) had actually become an impediment to simplification. At some point, there were just too many comments, too many emails, too much COMPLEXITY. I have a feeling some of my fellow bloggers understand this all too well. Taking some time off was good in that it helped me find my focus again.

THE PLOT

I want to thank the dozens and dozens (hundreds at this point?) of people who submitted a comment and/or emailed me with their own versions of the Plot. For those of you who received an envelope feel free to comment publicly, though I would ask that you do so anonymously. I will, of course, keep your email acknowledgements in confidence. Finally, I wanted to thank R. from a certain veterans group for helping me distribute some of the envelopes. I don’t think I could have finished without you.

EMAIL

I also wanted to apologize for not replying to any emails the past couple of weeks. I really needed total radio silence during this self-imposed sabbatical. I promise to get back to everyone as soon as possible.

CHANGES TO THE BLOG

Over the next week or so I hope to add a couple of links to sidebar on the voluntary simplicity movement. I have a feeling that some people stumble on this blog without any real sense of what I am doing, why I am doing it, or what Voluntary Simplicity really entails.

COMMENT MODERATION

I’ve come around to the idea of adding comment moderation to all of my posts. As you may recall, I had originally rejected that approach a couple of months ago in favor of a more Millsean marketplace-of-ideas approach. The benefit of this new approach is not to stifle ideas but merely to make my job a little easier. Constantly reviewing the blog for troll comments and meaningless fluff is super annoying and time-consuming. Now that I have comment moderation turned on, I can review all comments at once and streamline the whole process. The underlying policy remains the same: anyone with a legitimate, cogent perspective may comment. Anything that is outright offensive will be rejected.