Why I write

I often call myself the world's worst blogger. And the title of this blog has been "nate's incoherent babble" since January of 2025. As a writer, I have been remarkably unsuccessful in a very open way. And I think there are many reasons why my writing on this blog is usually unread, despite hammering away at it for nearly 25 years:

The first and simplest explanation is this: I probably suck at writing. That last sentence is ample testament to my lack of artful prose. I am long-winded and perhaps short-sighted, and I love to write didactic essays which invite the most argumentative readers (when they invite readers at all). I rarely meet a digression I do not engage with (see that last sentence). And the breadth and shallowness of what I like to write about defies any attempt at categorization, except for the 52 broad topics in the contents sidebar of this blog.

The second explanation is that people don't read that much anymore. They may scan, but they rarely digest. Especially online where the blog became the vlog, became the TED talk, became the video essay, became the podcast, became the TikTok. Distractions multiplied. Life sped up. The ability to read and inwardly digest has slowed down. Even as I started this blog in 2005 it was a medium on the downward slide. Now it is a dinosaur and denizen of the so-called "dead internet" which is the harbinger of our increasingly a-literate (but not illiterate) society. There is no need to burn books or ban websites when people just ignore them for the next shiny thing served up by Uncle Algorithm.

The third explanation is that I am, and always have been, horrible at self-promotion. I do not like to draw attention to myself even as I feel compelled to write about what seems to be true and good and beautiful to me. Because when I draw people to my writings it seems like I get two human responses*: The unreflective and benign "that was really neat, thanks for writing", or the combative "you are an idiot and here is a point-by-point takedown mixed with character assassination". Very few responses come from interested interlocutors who bring helpful insight and critique that push the conversation further.

*Actually, the most prolific response I get is not human at all, but advertising bots spamming ad links into comments for everything from MLMs to adult content. Which is why I had to shut off comments unless I review them!

As a result, the blog-as-town-square model of dialogue seems to have shut down in the early 2010s. In recent years the most in-depth human engagement I have had comes from online reactionaries who have used my blog to misquote me or doxx me in an attempt to get me fired. So, I do not self-promote that often. I am far too busy with family and pastoring to spend time on the drama that comes with high levels of engagement. And I absolutely refuse to partner with AdSense or any form of advertising which would commodify what I do here. Which in turn demotes my work with "Uncle Algo", making my writing mostly invisible.

I could pile on reasons why I think people don't read what I write. But those are the top three. But this raises the question: Why write at all?

Mainly, I think there is a compulsion-- be it Divinely inspired or psychologically malignant or both-- which drives me to write. I have long identified with the prophet Jeremiah (and many of my writings could be classified as Jeremiads) when he confesses:

If I say, “I will not mention God's Word or speak anymore in his Name,” his Word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20.9)

Deep within, it feels like I was called to be a witness OF this era, perhaps more than a witness TO this era. Called to be a witness for whom? I am not sure. For God? Perhaps. For future generations of humans? Maybe. For the Algorithms which will take over after human cataclysm? I hope not. Although if my work is part of the training data that moves the world beyond our current interlocking crises, I suppose that would be better than silence.

I feel I was called to call out the many ways we miss the mark of God's Love found in Christ, and how it might be possible to find our Way back to that Love. I was called to point to the Triune God known in the Incarnation of Jesus, and show how this God is at the Root of all that is best in our culture, and how all that is worst in our culture eventually comes from severing ourselves from that Root. And finally I was called to bear witness to the Hope beyond hope that the Cosmic Christ is not done with us yet. That the Divine Love which birthed us will sustain us through all the hells we make for ourselves, and eventually lead us to ultimate healing, perhaps in this life, and definitely beyond.

Much like offering hard-earned wisdom about car wrecks to a teenager who just got their driver's license, this culture seems bent on maximal speed and maximal autonomy that will result in a life-altering (or life-ending) crash at some point in the near future. And this is not a crash like we had in our species' childhood, when human-induced cataclysm would "only" harm a few thousand or a few million, confined to "small" areas of the globe. This crash will affect us all at a global scale, and the innocence of our childhood will be irrevocably lost in ways that the 20th century was only a taste of.

(I told you my prose lacked skill)

So, I burn to say something about all of this. It is locked up in my bones and I have to let it out. But I write FOR an age that has not arrived yet, which will be able to see themes here in retrospect that perhaps we should have paid attention to. But I write IN an age that cannot hear or see it now. Perhaps this is a hangover from reading too much Jeremiah and too much Nietzsche. My prayer is that this is all a case of an old man yelling at the clouds to stay off his lawn, and that I will be wrong about cataclysm. My fear is that I am not wrong. May the Lord of Love have mercy on us all either way.