Artificial Boundaries
I always feel somewhat limited in what I can talk about on this blog. I don't feel like I can just sit down and write about something that I feel like talking about. This morning, for example, I stopped at a Starbucks on my way to the office. It doesn't have a drive through window so I parked and went inside. It was only 6:30 a.m. but there were already a couple of people sitting inside with their laptops open, waiting, I suppose, to see and be seen. I can understand that; it felt like a comfortable place to pass some time.
Outside the store, I saw tables in front and along the side. One man had positioned himself outside with his laptop open on one of the tables. That he could do this comfortably on an early March morning says a lot about how quickly Spring is approaching us in Houston. It also says something about the marketing genius of providing free wi-fi access at Starbucks.
Sure I can talk about these things if I want to, but then I feel compelled to tie it back in with the subject matter of the blog. This is one boundary that limits my writing. So I add a comment like how much the weather in Houston is like the weather in Guangzhou, which means that the girls are happy with it. Or I talk about how the girls and I would always stop in a Starbucks in Guangzhou next door to one of our favorite shopping malls. Maybe I could mention that few Chinese people stop in Starbucks in China because the price of the coffee is so high in relation to their earnings, in order to tie it back to this blog.
But what if I just wanted to talk about how it felt when I walked outside to pick up the newspaper this morning, or some other random topic? Nope, same dilemma. I would feel like I need to add that the girls were still sleeping soundly in the predawn chill of this early March morning in Houston, only a couple of months before they will return to China for part of the summer.
Then almost invariably the title that I started with must change in order for it to have anything to do with what I have written. I started this post with a title about "more exposure," but as I wrote, I never got to the point that I intended to talk about when I started writing. I guess I will have to leave that topic for another day, held in by one more boundary: the title of the post.
Outside the store, I saw tables in front and along the side. One man had positioned himself outside with his laptop open on one of the tables. That he could do this comfortably on an early March morning says a lot about how quickly Spring is approaching us in Houston. It also says something about the marketing genius of providing free wi-fi access at Starbucks.
Sure I can talk about these things if I want to, but then I feel compelled to tie it back in with the subject matter of the blog. This is one boundary that limits my writing. So I add a comment like how much the weather in Houston is like the weather in Guangzhou, which means that the girls are happy with it. Or I talk about how the girls and I would always stop in a Starbucks in Guangzhou next door to one of our favorite shopping malls. Maybe I could mention that few Chinese people stop in Starbucks in China because the price of the coffee is so high in relation to their earnings, in order to tie it back to this blog.
But what if I just wanted to talk about how it felt when I walked outside to pick up the newspaper this morning, or some other random topic? Nope, same dilemma. I would feel like I need to add that the girls were still sleeping soundly in the predawn chill of this early March morning in Houston, only a couple of months before they will return to China for part of the summer.
Then almost invariably the title that I started with must change in order for it to have anything to do with what I have written. I started this post with a title about "more exposure," but as I wrote, I never got to the point that I intended to talk about when I started writing. I guess I will have to leave that topic for another day, held in by one more boundary: the title of the post.
Sometimes it's hard to comment too!
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I know that must be true, Smitty. We get a lot of readers every day, but not everyone takes the time to leave a note.
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