I go through phases where 90% of what I post on here is original content. And then I go through phases where 70% of what I post is duplicate content from other sites that I cut and paste from and link to.<\/p>\n
Much of this depends on my mood. I know that I often make a lot of strange posts and then I feel like I don’t want my strange posts to be the first thing that people see when they come on my site, so I go look for some stories to feature and I excerpt from them.<\/p>\n
My favorite sources are DennisPrager.com, TorahMusings.com, FrumSatire.net and JewishPress.com. <\/p>\n
Over the past 15 months, when my Alexander Technique teacher training has been in session, I’ve been too tired to blog much beyond my narrow obsession with Dennis Prager.<\/p>\n
I made a commitment to myself in December 1997 to chronicle Prager. Since I first heard him on KABC radio in August 1988, he’s been my favorite thinker. I’ve been a little obsessed with hearing everything he has to say. I then like to write about it. I don’t feel like I’ve really got it until I blog it.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of other people I could’ve chosen to chronicle. I selected Prager. I only have limited energy and time, so on many days, he’s about the only thing I write about. I’m OK with that. Much of the time, I find him consistently more interesting than any other thinker. And much of the time I feel like he is just recycling through things I’ve already heard a thousand times.<\/p>\n
Still, I’ve made a commitment. Unless I commit to a project through thick and thin, it is rare that I accomplish anything. So I throw in my lot and soldier on in the things I am committed to — Judaism, writing, Alexander Technique, family, friends, Dennis Prager.<\/p>\n
I do have an authentic self. I like to act out a lot but I do have a core. It is usually centered between conflicting impulses. For instance, I’ve spent most of my life in a traditional religious community (Seventh-Day Adventist in my childhood, Orthodox Judaism in my adulthood), but always felt a tug towards freedom and away from complete integration. I am willing to give up some community for some freedom and I am willing to give up some freedom for some community. If I abandoned my freedom completely to absorb myself within a Torah community, I would not be authentic to who I am. If I abandoned Judaism to do what I like, I would not be authentic to who I am.<\/p>\n
I’ve always been willing to keep silent at times to preserve friendships but I am never willing long to stifle myself to preserve them. During my first three years in Los Angeles, I stifled a little more of myself than I normally like to be part of Dennis Prager’s world and to feel some sense of family and community at Stephen S. Wise’s Mountaintop Minyan. Then I had enough of my self-containment and took to the web to write my mind and suffered the inevitable exclusion that comes from failing to conform to expected norms.<\/p>\n
When I wrote on specific genres of the entertainment industry, I was the same person as I am now writing on specific genres of Judaism. I love a good story and I am willing to follow one wherever it takes.<\/p>\n
Since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to devote myself to writing. Along the way, I felt fine that there were years when I did not write much so I could pay my bills and pursue other interests. Whether I was in construction or acting, I felt like the time would deepen my writing.<\/p>\n
I love being in an intimate relationship with a woman, but there always comes a time when it seems like I have to choose between the relationship and my integrity. If I am not willing to risk the relationship to be true to my values, the relationship will inevitably deteriorate as I squash myself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I go through phases where 90% of what I post on here is original content. And then I go through phases where 70% of what I post is duplicate content from other sites that I cut and paste from and … Continue reading