My last post was called my most hated. I suspect this one could easily surpass it.

I am nearing the end of my long re-read of The Lord of the Rings, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I have reached the end of the tale proper and have just the appendices left. In reading of Merry and Pippin marshaling a few hundred hobbits against a band of stronger men, I kept thinking “man, this is all very Nauvoo legion-ish”. And then I thought “man, Merry and Pippin are putting off major Joseph and Hyrum vibes”.

And then I remembered Bill. No, not Sam’s beloved pony but the one mentioned many times on this blog. What I remembered was that Bill posited that Merry and Pippin were reborn as Joseph and Hyrum so that idea I had while reading was probably his idea resurfacing in my mind.

And that got me thinking about Bill in general and I couldn’t help but reach a conclusion — Bill, in my opinion, was better before the syncs.

Take his old blog as an example. Pre-syncs it was an entirely different creation than it was post-syncs. Pre-syncs he had something to say, and I mean really say. Something thought out, or at least mostly baked, so to speak. When Bill first emailed me with a link to his now-deleted blog, he had been at it for a few months. I got to catch up across many posts in a short period, sort of a binge-watch of Bill’s blogging which allowed me to observe the shift in a way that others probably didn’t. I said it back then too, for the record — his blog went from one thing to another. When he switched into sync mode his blog was far different and far worse in my humble opinion. I encouraged him to let go of the syncing and go back to what it was before. Instead of taking my own advice, I followed him into the breach.

My two sons reached the same conclusion if that counts for anything. They eventually found his stream-of-consciousness sync blogging unreadable, as did I (no offense, Bill, if you are still reading posts here). To be fair, they found my blog to be the same sort of slog when I wrote of syncs. It took them a while to tell me that, but finally did a couple months ago. Hearing that from them I think broke some spell and inspired me to pull away from syncs as an experiment and I don’t miss it.

While I’m out here making friends I might as well say it all: I think the whole sync affair is a road to nowhere, unless you think circles can have an end. Syncs seem to be an end in themselves, but an end that never ends. It’s nothing but endless connections, endless questions, endless posts, endless comments…endless nonsense when you add it all up. It leads to nothing but more of itself and actually I think that’s the point of them.

Now granted, I’m not saying there is absolutely nothing to coincidences, nor am I saying that angels can’t lead us along with a small nudge from an otherwise nondescript occurrence. I am saying that what I observed at Bill’s old blog and at WJT’s current blog looks like obsession with the irrelevant. Straining at gnats, so to speak.

I just can’t see what good has really come of it. What has it led to but more unknowns and inscrutable mysteries? If someone is actually behind these syncs, it has brought very little of anything good or helpful that I can see. Not that I begrudge it as an experiment on my part or Bill’s or WJT’s or anyone else’s. I just think at some point you’ve got to admit that it’s done nothing for us that I can see. Or if it has, I doubt it has done more than what Bill accomplished in the early days of his old blog so to the extent syncs have achieved anything, I’d say it was *despite* them rather than because of them. I would welcome correction to my misperception, however.

None of this is meant as a personal attack on Bill or WJT, for the record. I happen to like both of them as far as I know them. I have endured some of their quirks and even slights but they have endured as much or more of mine so this isn’t about maligning them in any way or grinding an ax. And if they are having fun with it, who am I to tell them to stop? Or if they can tolerate the sync experiment longer than I can, then by all means, they should do as they see fit.

But I see them now, hunched over some Gordian knot, endlessly turning it over this way and that, searching for the elusive end with which they can untie it and become a ruler. Surely they have wondered if it’s worth it or if they haven’t walked down some path of mysteries for mysteries’ sake. Maybe one of them should pick up a sword and simply cut the knot in two.

I say sink the syncs.