{"id":286,"date":"2020-10-30T22:56:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T03:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/?p=286"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:26:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:26:50","slug":"feasts-and-famines-a-recap-from-my-old-web-log","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"Feasts and Famines (a recap from my old web log)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I made a <a href=\"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">post in my previous web log<\/a> over 15 years ago, and I&#8217;ve been thinking about it <em>a lot<\/em> lately. The post took even longer than usual to settle on the point. So, I&#8217;ve decided to copy just the relevant part into <em>this post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I\u2019ve thought a lot lately about what seems to be kind of an artifact of my personality. It\u2019s really hard for me to partially concentrate on things. A better way to put it is that I have a hard time dividing my attention. It shows up most prominently in my hobbies and (unfortunately) with friends. As a matter of fact, it\u2019s probably pretty likely that there are friends out there reading this that are nodding their heads right about now.<br \/><br \/>I don\u2019t mean to be neglectful. When I look back, the logical part of my brain says that all I really need to do is just drop a line and say \u201cHi\u201d every once in a while. The problem is that kind of thing doesn\u2019t occur to me. I get wrapped up in\u2026 whatever &#8220;it&#8221; happens to be at any particular time, and I just don\u2019t think about saying &#8220;Hi&#8221;. Then <em>something<\/em> will happen (maybe a visit, maybe a crisis that demands attention), and suddenly one of my long-neglected friends will get more attention than he\/she ever wanted.<br \/><br \/>I often wonder if that behavior comes off as insincere. I hope it doesn\u2019t, because it\u2019s not. I have to imagine that behavior looks like I\u2019m just pretending to pay attention after so long away. It\u2019s not that way, though. Like so many things in my life, I feel fake somehow if I don\u2019t devote complete attention to whoever I\u2019m focused on at the moment. The behavior is completely sincere, but it has to feel a bit strange when that attention moves on.<\/p>\n<cite>from: <a href=\"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=190<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I made a post in my previous web log over 15 years ago, and I&#8217;ve been thinking about it a lot lately. The post took even longer than usual to settle on the point. So, I&#8217;ve decided to copy just the relevant part into this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,22],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-deep-thoughts","tag-life-events-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddlysincere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}