I don't write daylogs very often because I figure if people want to read about my boring day-to-day activities, there's always Livejournal where they can be bored at their leisure.

But I'm tired of watching E2 bleed talented noders because they're afraid. And I don't think it's fair to blame the administration. Merit whoredom has just as much to do with the users than it does with the people who keep house around here. And maybe it's because I'm sort of a dinosaur and I don't really understand the merit system that I really just don't give a damn about it.

E2 isn't dead. Not yet anyway, but if people keep acting like there's a grim, cowled line of grey-robed judges waiting to cast all their works into perdition, E2's death will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

E2's not like that, not unless we make it that way. I left E2 for over a year once, mostly because real life got in the way, and when I came back, E2 was a little tougher and a little less laissez-faire. So I worked a little harder and stopped composing all my writeups in the little textbox that says to enter your writeup. I still never thought about whether or not something was worthy to be here. I'm a bad judge of my own work; part of the reason I come here is to get other people's opinions, even if I don't always like them.

To me, E2 is about writing. And I think writing is about taking risks. About trying new things, about pushing yourself just a little bit harder. Sometimes, most times, these things won't be brilliant. That's okay. Not everything has to be brilliant. But when I think of how many potentially spectacular writeups have been lost or may be lost because someone is afraid that they'll drop in merit, I want to tear out my hair and howl.

fuck merit whoredom.

fuck perfectionism.

fuck worrying, "Is it good enough?"

Write.

Write.

WRITE.

Write some more.