Friday, Nile from Colin’s Class wrote a great blog post about running into an old friend who had recently been divorced. Here is what I wrote in response:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

First, I should note that both my wife and I are on our second marriages, so I can speak first hand about divorce. In my case, my divorce was fairly amicable. We worked through a lot of our issues in mediation and have a very good framework where parenting is equally shared. Nonetheless, it is incredibly heart wrenching to go through a divorce, and as much as I like to be very open about personal things in blogs, there are things about divorce that I just can’t talk about, even in a blog.

From this perspective, I would actually encourage you to speak to your friend about his divorce. He may be able to portray things as being well resolved and speak glibly about the carpool logistics of a single dad, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t real deep hurts that are still there. If you are sorry about what has happened, and it sounds as if you are, you should say, “I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.” If your friend is anything like I was, he will probably look down for a moment, maybe even close his eyes, then look up and with a weak smile and say, “thank you”. He will change subjects, but he will probably sleep a little better that night because you said that. Divorce isn’t a little loss that you easily move on from.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

How does this relate to blogging? Actually, I think it fits in pretty nicely. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about social networks. People are the nodes. The links between people are the relationships. Too many people think of networks in terms of nodes and links, and overlook the third important component of networks, the flow. Any link, or relationship that is getting too little flow, or too much flow ends up changing over time. It breaks down, it gets stronger. It changes.

Day after day, love turns grey

Like the skin of a dying man.

Night after night, we pretend its all right

But I have grown older and

You have grown colder and

Nothing is very much fun any more.

Part of what I walked away with from my divorce was a commitment to be more open, to reach out more, to try and understand better what others are saying and to say better what I am feeling. Maybe that’s part of the reason I blog.

In response, Nile sent me an email saying,
Thanks for your comment. It was great. If you have a chance, take a look at my post on rhetoric. I'd like to discuss your blog. Why do you blog? You started to get into it in your comments, but what do you see when you look at your blog?

Last May I wrote, this blog post saying, ” Of course there is the other aspect of why people write; because they must.”

Yes. The reason I write is because I must. I’ve always had to write. Blogs have just turned out to be a medium for writing that feels really good to me.

Why does anyone write? Because we must. Because some muse has grabbed us and compelled us to write. Without blogs, I might simply live a life of quite desperation, not finding a chance to write, or my writing might simply end up in a pile of notebooks that some great grandchild of mine might discover some day.

With blogs, I write, some people may read what I write,


A long, long time ago...

I can still remember

How that music used to make me smile.

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.


Does this help answer the question? I don’t know. I hope so.