A blog milestone

If I count a post I've scheduled for a later date (I do that sometimes), as of now I have written 10,000 posts for the blog since I began in 2010.  Not bad.  As I've said before, the original reasoning for the blog passed many years ago. Since then it's became an informal setting for me to just spout on about things, but usually not things in my own areas of expertise.  That's so I don't feel pressured to do much more than type off the top of my head, hit spellcheck, and then publish. A sort of 'sit a spell' place to bounce around ideas and observations.  Truth be told, its the comments more than my own ramblings I find the most valuable.  

But something interesting caught my eye.  It isn't that I've published 10,000 posts.  I've actually only published 4,913.  So where are the rest?  Left in mothball for the most part.  Those are posts, some of them quite long, that I had second thoughts about or decided there was a reason I shouldn't hit publish.  Some I've deleted over the years, most I keep around for reference if need be.  But that's over 5,000 posts I wrote out, then chose for reasons not to publish. 

Not sure why that made me think.  I'm conservative by nature, though not necessarily 'a conservative.'  That is, I tend to exercise restraint.  If I write fast and spellcheck fast, I nonetheless will sometimes let a post sit for days or weeks before I decide to hit publish.  And as is obvious, in at least 5,000 cases, I may think the better of it and decide not to hit publish at all. 

For instance, I saw a story about Pope Francis a couple weeks ago. Something about him and education.  It wasn't anything that surprised me.  But after about a half dozen paragraphs of fussing, and hitting save, I went back and figured it would do no good to publish.  One, there was nothing especially new about the complaint.  And two, to be honest, a more charitable take might have given a different spin than the one I took, and I could see how someone could take that approach.  So I decided not to publish.  That's why most of the over 5,000 posts sit there collecting digital dust. 

Just thought that it interesting I've not posted more than I have posted.  Plus, that it was an even 10,000 total was, I felt, noteworthy and fun.