Blogging Zen

If my years in law school have taught me anything, it is that our world is a much more complicated place than it often needs to be. Consider that a recent case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court just to determine the meaning of the word “now” in a statute. I wish I were kidding…  See Carcieri v. Salazar, 129 S. Ct. 1058 (2008).

Given that the political, and social issues we traffic in on this slice of the web are complicated enough, I could not help feeling compelled to simply things in order to be more consistent with my minimalist theme for the new year.

For those who care, my interest in minimalism came about from a year end post on the website ZenHabits.net. In its list of top posts, the site explored how to create a ‘minimalist computer experience.’ The tips offered left me technologically floored.

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Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a compulsive filer. I create folders, and sub-folders on my computers that run many layers deep – almost to the point of absurdity, and almost always teetering on the brink of inefficiency. Naturally, a minimalist approach to such madness has been a welcomed deviation from the norm.  In fact, so taken was I by the concept of minimalism, that I tried to incorporate some of the themes into other areas of my life too.

One quick example.  I try to make it an annual habit to read through the Bible, cover-to-cover, in a year. But for the past six years or so, my efforts have become bogged down by study habits. My penchant for study, in all forms, whether in the classroom or in my personal curiosities, is to mark up books. Underlining, note-taking in the margins (never highlighting, though), and dog-earing pages are all unfortunate blights that affect my personal library. Anyway, this habit of writing in my Bible invariably slowed down my progress each time I attempted to trek through the Bible’s sixty-six books.

To simply this process, I purchased a new Bible made from some of the finest quality materials around, that is small enough to take with me wherever I go, yet too small, and ‘too nice’ to write in. The results have seen me turn an inconsistent exercise into a  daily practice.  Put differently, I no longer feel compelled to mark up what I should be absorbing. And my life is all the better for it.

All of which is a very long way of saying that the present layout, hopefully, serves a similar function. As you can see, the typical headers remain at the top, but all of the sidebars have been relocated to the bottom of the page. The most important information is situated closest to the main box where the posts are located. The less important information such as my political links, blogging credits, etc… are marginalized toward the sides.

The overall goal, of course, is to continue to make Pax Plena user friendly, and to place emphasis back on the text of the conversation rather than the sidebars.  Given that minimalism is a theme of mine, hopefully your experience here will be a bit of ‘blogging zen’ too.