Am I Waterblogged?

A friend recently asked me a simple question:

“Are you waterblogged? No updates since July 6.”

Fair question. And it made me think enough to ask myself some questions.

Because, yeah… I’ve been quiet. Not because there’s nothing to say, but maybe because there’s too much. I’ve been starting more and finishing less.

That’s the problem.

The Morning Jerk

Most mornings I wake up with the intention to write. And for a few minutes, I do. But then that familiar voice — I call him the jerk who lives in my head — kicks in and starts questioning everything.

“Is this really worth writing down?”

“Does anyone care?”

“Are you just talking to yourself?”

It’s not that I don’t have thoughts. If anything, I have too many. I’ve got ideas tumbling around like dice in a cup — philosophy, health, music, history, aging, curiosity — and I throw them onto the page hoping something lands face-up. But lately, I pull back before I even get going.

Maybe part of me was secretly hoping these thoughts would matter to someone else. That one of my musings might quietly shift someone else’s path, even slightly. That something I created might touch another life — like a chain reaction of meaning. And when that doesn’t feel like it’s happening… the jerk starts whispering that it was all a bit self-indulgent to begin with.

Hougoumont Brain

Here’s an analogy, because I tend to think in pictures.

Right now, my inner world feels like Hougoumont Farm at Waterloo.

At first, calm. Peaceful. Rolling hills. A quiet field before a storm.

Then suddenly, it’s June 18, 1815, and Napoleon’s army is crashing through the walls. Cannons, chaos, and smoke everywhere. And I’m caught in the middle, trying to write a blogpost while ducking flying shrapnel.

Dramatic? Maybe. But you know me — I do tend to overdo things.

Still, the chaos feels real. My mind’s in battle. My curiosity is firing in all directions. I start projects, dive into topics, make music, write lines, experiment with supplements, test protocols… and then move on to something else before the last note is mixed, or the last word is edited, or the habit truly sticks.

The Junkyard of Half-Finished Ideas

I don’t want to slow down. I’m 73, retired, but not slowing down. I’m learning, exploring, building, healing, creating. I’m fully alive — and I want to stay that way.

But at the end of each day, I look behind me and see a long trail of half-finished things.

Blogs still in drafts.

Music tracks unmixed, unpublished.

Health plans mapped but not enacted.

Books with dog-eared pages and margin notes but no conclusion.

It’s like I’m a human draft folder. Constantly busy. Constantly curious. But rarely finalizing anything.

The Blue Sky Behind the Smoke

But here’s the thing: this ramble of a blogpost — this messy internal conversation — is actually helping.

I can see some blue sky behind the smoke.

And it comes down to something very simple.

Start. Change. Stop.

That’s it.

The cycle of creation.

You start something. You move through it. You finish it.

Even if it’s just a feeling, a sentence, a track, a thought. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. Completion gives form to chaos. It turns raw thought into shareable experience.

And lately… I haven’t been stopping. I haven’t been finishing.

And that’s what’s been bogging me down. Not a lack of ideas. Not laziness. Just too many open loops and not enough closure.

The Answer to the Question

So to answer the original question — “Are you waterblogged?”

Yes.

But not because the well is dry.

More like the dam is full and I haven’t opened the gates.

Answering this question is me cracking those gates open again. It’s imperfect. Flawed logic in places. A little dramatic. But it’s real to me.

And if you’re reading this — well — thank you for letting me finish something today.