2013 has not been a great year for this blog.
Several times I made the decision to stop writing but either through inherent inconsistency or perverse stubbornness (not sure which) I recanted and elected to continue.
In the lead up to 2013 my blog had suffered several attacks from work based sources (as a consequence I can no longer write about work issues) and also, most damagingly, was attacked by a close member of my family. A family member who dismissed this blog as self aggrandisement, self-publicity, a fantasy ego trip and bizarrely as a means of fencing memories and feelings that they plainly thought I had no right to air to the anonymous, fake "sycophants" who read every post that I write [I wish].
The aftermath of all this was that I began to question every flowering of inspiration, every issue that motivated me to write, every idea for a post that happened to impinge upon my brain.
I went from writing three posts a week to barely managing to cough up one.
I accept that for some of you that was a positive outcome.
For me it lead to a year when this blog stopped feeling like it was mine. When my voice was muted, censored, diminished. When it was no longer enough for a subject to be close to my heart in order for me to write about it; I had to somehow justify it to these "other voices" that had insidiously invaded my head and presented me with a list of rules and regulations that I had to obey.
It's taken me the best part 2013 to realize that these voices have no right to be in my head and I have no business at all to be listening to them.
In that sense 2013 has been a great year for this blog.
The blogging landscape has changed enormously since I began writing here in 2006. Many wonderful blogs have fallen by the wayside to be replaced by automated shop windows and market stalls. Blogging has become less about sharing the experience of the everyday (and sometimes the unusual) and more about selling product.
Call me a puritan but I believe the only thing that should truly be sold on a blog is the writing. The words. The language. [So do buy my books.]
The disappearance of wonderful bloggers means less wonderful readers around to comment and bolster the spirits of flagging writers. You few who visit here regularly are very definitely diamonds in the rough. I know there are amazing blogs out there but having tried to find them I can tell you it is like searching for a needle in a haystack that is made of straw pretending to be needles.
But I have come to realize that that too doesn't really matter. Chasing a readership is just another way of obeying a voice in one's head that has no right to be there.
So at the end of 2013 and the start of 2014 - at the end of 1000 posts and hopefully at the start of another 1000 - it is time to rededicate this blog.
Not grandly or overly ambitiously. Not fakely or servilely.
But honestly.
To write as I see fit about things that matter to me and mine. To share and not to impose.
If you don't want to be here then - please, in the nicest possibly way - don't be.
But if you want to stay then know that you are most welcome.
Happy 2014 to you all.
Showing posts with label real. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Friday, March 23, 2012
Skin
Nothing says “real person” more than bad habits.
See, I don’t subscribe to the view that people should be perfect or beyond all reproach. Stars and celebrities who project an air of excessive personal hygiene to the point of godliness are damned liars and fakers. I actually think such media projected sterility makes them less lovable. I mean, could you really love someone who never ever hooks a bit of earwax out of their inner ear with a fingernail?
Think carefully before you give that question a kneejerk response.
If we were all to be honest about it, picking one’s nose makes one more human, more fallible, more real and more accessible and, therefore, more deserving of other people’s love and more able to be loved.
To that end then, to court your adoration and earn the love I know that you are all yearning to give me, I have decided to share a few of my bad habits with you.
Nose and ear picking can be assumed as standard. We all do those. Some of us use cotton buds on sticks. Some of us fashion the corner of a hankie into a surgeon’s scoop. Some of us even buy those little mini Henry desktop Hoovers in an attempt to automate the process but we all – all of us – at some point in our lives introduce various hooking devices into the small recesses of our faces to remove redundant matter. I’m not going to bore you with the wherewithal of this or cut and paste data from my mucus log-book to give you an example of my longest bogey or most scallop like clump of earwax... just assume that I do it like the rest of you (though possibly with a little more class).
No, peculiar to me (not necessarily peculiar to you) my worst habit is probably picking my actual face.
Spots, mini scabs, tiny blemishes, dried and dead skin, anything that feels out of odds and disrupts the smooth texture of my skin when caressed with a sensitive fingertip is up for immediate removal in my book. Even better are those tiny scales of dead white skin that become trapped within the follicle forest of my beard or moustache. Because they have to be teased out through the barrier of possessive bristles that tend to want to keep them embedded where they are. I think that it’s this obstacle course of hair that makes the process all the more enjoyable. You can’t just have a quick scratch and flick and be done with it.
You have to dig. You have to wheedle. You have to be subtle and tactical. Especially if you want to get the skin out all in one piece replete with visible follicle holes.
I find I go into an almost meditative state when I engage in this activity. It’s, like, totally Zen. I bliss out. I enter an altered state of consciousness. It is deeply therapeutic. I suspect it is a shamanistic activity though Google doesn’t appear to want to back me up on that one at the moment.
Ha! What does Google know? Does Google have a face to pick?
No.
Sod Google.
So.
There we go.
I pick my face. I am totally deserving of your love and adoration and devotion. And if anybody doubts the veracity of that claim you can now prove it beyond all reason.
Now pucker up and kiss me like a good 'un.
See, I don’t subscribe to the view that people should be perfect or beyond all reproach. Stars and celebrities who project an air of excessive personal hygiene to the point of godliness are damned liars and fakers. I actually think such media projected sterility makes them less lovable. I mean, could you really love someone who never ever hooks a bit of earwax out of their inner ear with a fingernail?
Think carefully before you give that question a kneejerk response.
If we were all to be honest about it, picking one’s nose makes one more human, more fallible, more real and more accessible and, therefore, more deserving of other people’s love and more able to be loved.
To that end then, to court your adoration and earn the love I know that you are all yearning to give me, I have decided to share a few of my bad habits with you.
Nose and ear picking can be assumed as standard. We all do those. Some of us use cotton buds on sticks. Some of us fashion the corner of a hankie into a surgeon’s scoop. Some of us even buy those little mini Henry desktop Hoovers in an attempt to automate the process but we all – all of us – at some point in our lives introduce various hooking devices into the small recesses of our faces to remove redundant matter. I’m not going to bore you with the wherewithal of this or cut and paste data from my mucus log-book to give you an example of my longest bogey or most scallop like clump of earwax... just assume that I do it like the rest of you (though possibly with a little more class).
No, peculiar to me (not necessarily peculiar to you) my worst habit is probably picking my actual face.
Spots, mini scabs, tiny blemishes, dried and dead skin, anything that feels out of odds and disrupts the smooth texture of my skin when caressed with a sensitive fingertip is up for immediate removal in my book. Even better are those tiny scales of dead white skin that become trapped within the follicle forest of my beard or moustache. Because they have to be teased out through the barrier of possessive bristles that tend to want to keep them embedded where they are. I think that it’s this obstacle course of hair that makes the process all the more enjoyable. You can’t just have a quick scratch and flick and be done with it.
You have to dig. You have to wheedle. You have to be subtle and tactical. Especially if you want to get the skin out all in one piece replete with visible follicle holes.
I find I go into an almost meditative state when I engage in this activity. It’s, like, totally Zen. I bliss out. I enter an altered state of consciousness. It is deeply therapeutic. I suspect it is a shamanistic activity though Google doesn’t appear to want to back me up on that one at the moment.
Ha! What does Google know? Does Google have a face to pick?
No.
Sod Google.
So.
There we go.
I pick my face. I am totally deserving of your love and adoration and devotion. And if anybody doubts the veracity of that claim you can now prove it beyond all reason.
Now pucker up and kiss me like a good 'un.
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