I got an email the other day from a regular reader. She noted that another legal blogger had written about his apparent disappointment that I had not linked to his blog. Sure enough, someone wrote that I didn't think his blog was "good enough" to link to mine. A small pebble was dropped. The ripples have now ceased.
I've blogged at one site or another since early 2005. For a time, it seemed important to me to track traffic. The more readers the better, it seemed to me. The site I blogged on was popular. It still is. Mike over at Crime and Federalism is a truly creative mind. I enjoy reading his blog still, but not so much for more or less quotidian takes on the practice of law. I get a belly full of that just talking to lawyers in the hall of one court or another. What I enjoy about Crime and Federalism is the cross-fertilization that comes of reading about things other than the law. Mike's got a passion for cognitive sciences and social psychology.
After I left Crime and Federalism, I started a blog under my own name. I wanted readers. So I wrote often. I felt something like pressure to have something to say about whatever issue had just emerged. But in the end the compulsion to have something to say quickly led to writing that was flat and commentary that was little more than flip. I rarely look at the blawgoshpere any longer.
The incestuous quality of blogging doesn't appeal to me. Endless cross notations to other writers sharing our all-too-obvious insights on the events of the past 12 or, gasp, 24 hours, has little appeal. Increasingly, I am drawn to sites unrelated to the law, however. And I still am compelled to write and am gratified that anyone reads at all.
So I am changing course as a so-called legal blogger. I'll still write about legal issues. I am a lawyer after all. But what interests me about the law isn't the vanilla topics familiar to all. What interests me are the more exotic flavors. Hence, today I linked to a blog on fairy tales, part of an emerging interest I have in finding archetypical stories that correspond to the emotional dramas unfolding in a courtroom. Check out Diamonds & Toads. And I will continue to labor along in my efforts to understand Jesus' parables.
I am not quitting the practice of law. Far from it. I simply intend to use this page as a way of finding images and inspiration in something other than the most obvious impression a mirror can hold.
Thanks for reading.