Superman, the Middle East, and silence.

A good friend wanted to know why I haven't been blogging. Well actually, they just said I should start back up. It's hard. I've ran into this in other forms of writing, where you get a little writer's block, and then doubt creeps in about every word. Is this one right? Oh shit, this line is just plain wack. Like an all star third baseman questioning his throws to first, it gets into your head and writing becomes harder.

I often wonder which is harder; the initial breaking of a silence, or bouncing back from several or repeated silences. If the rules of organizing apply, the initial silence is easier to break. A person who you've never met, never built with before has little/no expectations of you, or possibly has negative associations/baggage. But once you've started the conversation, chances are prolonged breaks are going to be much harder to overcome. For me, it's almost like learning to write each time over... slowly feeling it coming back to me, but much more traumatic than "riding a bike."

But I can't hold this stuff in any longer. There's a lot going on out there in the world, good people, and I need to put it somewhere, and that's one of the reasons I started this thing. So expect more out of me in the following weeks, including a live blog of the National Havurah Committee's Summer Institute (which I'm helping plan, so it may be a little biased) both here and over on Jewschool. I imagine the liveblogging possibilities at the Institute are pretty endless, with 5 Jewschool posters, and at least two more Jewish bloggers all in the house.

While BZ and Mobius have put up some great posts on the sitution in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, I'm shortly going to add mine to the frey. Because, really, this chaos has me more frustrated, angry, upset, and feeling downright powerless and caught in the middle than anything i've felt ina while (and I'm safely ensconced several thousand miles away from it, and I know that).