Sunday, July 28, 2013

New Name, New Direction

Welcome to "Heart Of The Wise!"

Hello blogging friends!  As you can see I've changed the name of my blog (and will most likely be changing the url soon, too.)  No longer will my humble spot on the world wide web be known as Sinistra's Bane.  Now, my blog will be called, "Heart Of The Wise".

Why the change?

As you learned from my previous post I'm in a blogging malaise.  I feel a strong need to take my blog in a new direction to reflect the philosophical shifts taking place within myself.  Don't worry; I'm NOT switching sides; if anything, I'm becoming more conservative.  The changes occurring in me are less about what I believe and more about how to advance those beliefs in society, how to best defeat the Left.  I'm increasingly beginning to believe that the conservative movement in general and the Republican party in particular are actually proponents of what I call liberalism lite.  They want to take America to the same destination as the Left, just at a slower pace.  You can see it when conservatives discuss the nation's problems.  Despite their constant call for smaller government they are, for the most part, devoid of solutions that don't involve government and/or politics.  That's not me anymore, and I don't want that to be my blog anymore.  Hence, the name change.

Sinistra's Bane, like its predecessor, PoorGrrl Zone, served me well but it's time to move on.  I need a new name for a "new" blog that will, I hope, help take conservatives from whiners to winners.  That can be done but it's going to take a tremendous effort, a movement wide mobilization equal to the military mobilization of WWII.  My hope is that "Heart Of The Wise" be a part of that and maybe even help to create it.

Our country has MANY problems.  The solutions bandied about by (most) conservatives/Republicans aren't working anymore, if they ever did.  We need new ideas, fresh takes on old ones, and the wisdom to know the difference.  My fervent hope is that my little place on the worldwide web will contribute to such a change on the right side, the side of the wise.

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Blogging Blues

I'm in a blogging malaise.

I haven't written a post in two months, and even when I was posting "regularly" I was doing only one or two posts a month.  It's been that way for a long time and it's not just my posting that's slowed to a crawl.  I'm not reading blogs like I used to, either.  I've been on Blogger for nine years now--maybe that's part of the problem?--and I remember when I rarely missed a day of reading my favorite blogs.  Now I can scarcely recall what my favorite blogs were.  What's wrong?

Part of the problem is my illness.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2010--gosh, has it been three years already?--and for the next seven months I was focused on fighting the disease and getting well.  I won the battle, thank God, but after I did I didn't reconnect with blogging.  I took chemotherapy to fight the cancer and now I suffer from post-chemotherapy cognitive impairement, also known as "chemo brain".  Chemo brain makes it difficult to think, remember, focus, and concentrate.  I don't have a severe form of the ailment.  It doesn't affect my ability to function in every day life, thankfully.  It does, however, make it harder, sometimes a lot harder, to put words together.  I have words in my head but when I try to put them down on paper they get jumbled, and making a coherent sentence, let alone paragraph, can get so difficult I just quit.  When it comes to writing I hate quitting.  I get very mad at myself when I do, but the frustration of not being able to get the words out is overwhelming, so I give up.  So that's part of the reason for my blogging malaise.

Another reason is aethestics.  I just don't like the way my blog looks.  I've tried several different templates and layouts over the years but none of them ever really worked.  They just weren't me.  I've seen other blogs that look great but when I try to duplicate their look on my blog it just doesn't work.  That's almost as frustrating as dealing with the chemo brain induced writer's block.  I feel that if my blog had the right look, a look that was really ME, I'd be more interested in it, more motivated to push through the chemo brain and write.  But it doesn't have that look and, for now, I'm tired of trying to find or create it.  Therefore, my blog doesn't "call" me, and I don't miss it when I don't pull it up for weeks at a time.   That's the second reason for my blogging blues.  There's a final reason, though, one that, I think, will be the hardest to fix.  What is it?  I no longer know where my blog is going.

When I first started blogging I wrote mainly personal things.  Then I started commenting on politics, issues, and current events.  Slowly, the opinion pieces overshadowed the personal stuff and PoorGrrl Zone, as this blog was originally called, became a political blog.  I posted my thoughts on what was happening in America, mostly things I heard on the news, and that was great for a few years.  But then I started getting bored with that.  I didn't want my blog to be just a reaction to all the liberal craziness.  I still don't want it to be that.  In my opinion conservatives do too much of that; whining and complaining about liberal outrages but doing nohing about them.  Despite all the we-want-smaller-government rhetoric, conservatives don't seem interested in any solutions that don't involve politics and government.  That's not me anymore, and I don't want it to be my blog anymore.  I want Sinistra's Bane to stand for something, not just against something.  I want to offer non-political, non-governmental solutions to the problems that conservatives are so good at repeatedly diagnosing.  I'm not sure what type of solutions there might be but I can't keep on futilely railing against the darkness.  That's been a total failure for conservatism.  Instead, I want to light some candles.  I want a new mission for my blog.  I'm just not sure what form that mission will or should take.  Until I figure it that out I'll still be stuck in my blogging malaise.

Welcome to my world.

Happy 4th!

Hello friends!  Just want to wish all of you a marvelous 4th of July however you celebrate it.  Remember the real reason for the holiday while you're enjoying parades and barbecue.  God bless America!