Anne Truitt Zelenka

An outbreak of A-list blogger ennui has struck Silicon Valley. Arrington and Scoble have caught it. Could be they’re just envious. But pro-blogging is tiring work. It can make you feel dull.

What if you’re suffering some malaise and it’s not just envy? Maybe you’ve been hit with the curse of expert ennui… you’ve seen it all, done it all, it’s all too familiar, and you know too much. You need to get back to beginner’s mind, that fresh place where everything was new and exciting and full of possibility.

How to get back to beginner’s mind? Here’s what I might try.

1. Read something or someone new. The tech blogosphere is an insular place. What are your other interests? Politics, economics, law, parenting, knitting, food, celebrity gossip? Start reading some blogs in those areas. See that people aren’t as fixated on tech or on money as you thought. See that there’s life outside of techmeme. See that you, too, can be just another reader, just another commenter, only in another sphere.

2. Work on something that you’re not already good at. Feel the thrill of learning something new again. Get that beginner’s perspective back. Infuse new ideas into your old work. It doesn’t have to be something online. Plant a garden, learn to paint, take up kayaking.

3. Put one foot in front of the other. Work and life often don’t always proceed in grand hyperleaps. Sometimes it’s just one foot in front of the other. Write another blog post. Cover another startup. Take another briefing. Repeat. Keep doing that, and someday soon, something new and exciting will poke up out of the ground like a seedling.

Remind yourself that seedlings are pale green, tiny, pathetic compared to their full-grown counterparts. It’s hard to know which ones will grow into sturdy and healthy plants with fragrant blossoms. Enjoy those seedlings anyway, appreciate them for pushing up through the soil, and through the mulch you put down to stop the weeds from growing through.

4. Remember it’s not all about you. Buddhism has a practice called tonglen in which you imagine switching places with another and really seeing the world from their perspective, including whatever suffering they might be feeling. If you are beginning to see startup founders or anyone else as just masses of deluded or herdlike or money-obsessed creatures, picture yourself as one of them, see the world from their perspective. This will help you get back to a fresher state of mind and get you out of thinking your own perspective somehow exhausts the truth of the world.

5. Stop the judging. If you’re an A-list blogger, you probably got that way by showing some discrimination, some ability to critique other people’s work. But constantly judging people’s work as good or bad can lead to a frozen mindset that doesn’t allow new and exciting ideas to be recognized for what they are. It makes you jaded and cynical. Make yourself open to new ideas by postponing your critique of new ideas you hear about.

6. Get into the present moment. Set what you know aside and focus only on this moment. When you’re looking at a new service and you’re reminded of the fifteen other services that look just the same, put that out of your head. Enjoy whatever you’re experiencing right this moment, without thought of the past. If you’re writing a blog post, just write the blog post. Make it good. Write it well. Enjoy the flow.