Hey Glenn, why are we always waiting for stuff?

If you’re one of the people waiting for the next installment of the podcast series on philosophy of mind, or you’ve notice that the rate of production for blog posts is fairly low at the moment, and you’re wondering “Glenn, why are we always waiting for stuff?” read on.

There are some really great Christian blogs and podcasts out there. Not as many as I’d like, but there are some fantastic ones. A lot of them have some (but not all) of these features in common: The people whose material appears there don’t work on the blog or podcast, which is handled by people who do that and get paid to do that; the blogs/podcasts are those of people who are currently working in their academic area of interest and who – as part of their time spent in their normal employment, are researching and writing material some of which will appear in their blog or podcast; the blog or podcast is itself part of a full time professional ministry activity so there is no day job to get in the way of that ministry; they are not themselves working full time, eight hours a day five days a week (perhaps they are students or they work part time), and as a result have considerably more time than some people to work on material for their blog or podcast; they are either unmarried or they do not have children, so they do not spend their time on their spouse and/or children; their blog and/or podcast is created by a team of two or more people so that they are not the only person creating posts or episodes. There may be other situations that escape me right now, but those are the ones that I can think of.

None of these scenarios resembles me and what I do at Say Hello to my Little Friend, as much as I might like one or two of them to.  I go out each morning at the start of the day and work eight hours a day in a job that has nothing whatsoever to do with my academic qualifications or areas of interest. I come home, have dinner, and get to spend just a couple of short hours with our children, I get a little quality time with my wife, and I’m left with precious little at the end of it. I use that time to write blog posts, respond to comments, do research for future blog posts or podcast episodes, write and record podcast episodes, search for academic job listings in my field of interest, apply for jobs (writing application letters, filling our application forms, tweaking my CV for specific roles, etc) and so forth. Unless I have something pre-written from another project, it can take up nine hours or so to write a podcast episode, and I have to get up the next morning to go to work again, so I can’t stay up to the wee hours to get it done.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I just want to make sure everyone realises the major mismatch between what I’d like to do here and what I’m able to do here, so they appreciate what they actually get here just that little bit extra, and also to temper any expectations I might have created for listeners/readers here with a dose of reality. 🙂