Disappearing
For the past several days a little thought has niggled at the back of my brain, labelled “should write a blog post at some point”. I used to write nearly every dayand the words would come as easily as turning a tap, but in recent months it has become a conscious effort.
You can tell when life, the universe, and everything else has landed on me, because the blogging grinds to a halt, save for random photos landing at Instagram.
I know myself well enough now to resist making any bold proclamations about future resolutions to post more interesting, thoughtful, or soul searching wordsbecause I won't. Within days the universe will crap on me again, and you'll end up with photos of train platforms.
It's funny reallythose of use who like to write often dream about writing as a professionas a career, and yet I am lucky enough to know a few professional writers, and they tell the same story I can relate to in terms of software developmentnobody appreciates how difficult, time sucking, soul sucking, and rewardless it invariably is.
I can draw parallels with art. I spent the better part of two years at college drawing and painting people, but have not picked up a pencil or paintbrush in a decade. Anybody that sees my old coursework (or cons me into drawing doodles for the kids to colour in) asks why I don't get back into itand I usually reply in the only way I can that they might understand; that drawing people feels exactly the same as doing complicated maths for three or four hours. Strangely, as you get older, you also get far more critical and subjective about anything you do too. The last time I drew anything of consequence was at a night class about 15 years ago, and while I knew what I did was good, the pressure of doing it that well was enormous.
I sometimes look back at old blog posts, and am surprised at how well I used to writeand conversely how incredibly banal and pointless the rest of the drivel I have written is. I guess it provides a tiny window through which we can understand the “great” authors who turn out a historic book, and then never publish again.
Anyway. I'm jibbering on about a load of rubbish, as per usual. Go do something more useful than reading this junk. Go write something meaningful, honest, challenging, thoughtful, and all those other words.