BACK TO THE TREADMILL

So we reach the inevitable end of eleven rather fruitless days of kicking my heels around at home having been one of the wicked thousands who took the opportunity to book three days annual leave between the two bank holiday weekends and stretch it out to a nice lengthy little break from wage-slavery. Although, as ever when I look back, I wonder where on earth it vanished to and how incredibly quickly it did it, and wonder whether I did anything at all of any consequence during it, and I look at it and feel that I’ve slightly let myself down again.

So, what did I achieve? Well, for one, I came to realise that the more free time I have, the less I feel able to write, which is odd really, as you’d imagine the complete reverse to be more likely. However, the endless insomniac nights caught up with me and I found myself waking up and wondering what was the point and found it incredibly hard to string much in the way of coherent thoughts together. You may very well have noticed that from the most recent presentations offered hereabouts, but I think it was more fundamental. I felt rather more out of touch with the world than I had for quite some time over the last week or so and felt very much that there was little that I could say that would actually appeal or resonate with anyone. All-in-all, better to shut up, I thought.

More positively, I came to the conclusion that the world would not end if I failed to do this each and every day. Granted a six month daily slog at trying to write something new and original every morning is hardly the same as working in the salt mines, but as I approached the finishing line it became more and more difficult to find those precious few thoughts, string them together and stumble across that line, but, somehow, with a few less-than-relevant notions, the goal was accomplished, the tape was crossed and I could finally relax and let go.

Interestingly (well, interesting to me at any rate) I had pretty much finally decided to give it all up, cease and desist, pack away my metaphoric fountain pen and retire. The job was done, the plan completed and I was becoming increasingly aware of the sheer pointlessness of my humdrum observations upon what is by no means an interesting life. But then it became clear to me that I was actually quite enjoying the writing itself, even if I was giving myself a stick to beat myself up with by making it a daily requirement or necessity for myself. That said, I now also knew that I could write what I damn well wanted to whenever I chose to, so, if I felt like carrying on, I could and if I didn’t, I didn’t have to, it wasn’t like anyone was forcing me back on to the treadmill if I didn’t want to go.

This brought us to the inevitable ‘other’ stick to beat myself with namely ‘significance’. Now you’ll think I’m foolish (not that I care any more whether you think me foolish – I’m already telling it to myself often enough for it not to matter) but there was a distinct problem with stopping and that was the troubling little matter of even the remotest possibility of restarting again. You see, rattling on every day is a bit like series television; if you don’t like one episode, there’s a pretty good chance that there’ll be something to like in the next one. But, supposing that series turns into a feature film franchise? Suddenly each individual portion gains extra weight, extra significance and it becomes much harder to pick a topic that’s worthy of the feature film treatment and the weight of expectation upon each segment (and the possibility of subsequent disappointment) is so much greater. The pressure to think of something worthwhile or (although I hesitate to bandy the term about for fear of your derision) good enough to share would have increased exponentially to make me almost unable to function. It’s bad enough when I start to write a play. There are four or five ideas that I’d like to have a crack at, but which one is the one that I’d really like to put all my attention and effort into at the expense of all the others?

It’s just too hard to choose, and so sometimes you choose none of them.

This way is much better. Rattle something out because you feel like it. Don’t worry whether anyone else even notices, and really don’t worry whether people will think you’ve just given up and not come back to check. It really doesn’t matter. These observations and ravings are mine and mine alone. If other people choose to come along, have a bit of a peek and maybe find something that they like then that’s fine, but it’s not the reason that they’re being written for. Huzzah! More troubling is that, despite the fact that it might seem to be blindingly obvious to you, it took me more than six months to realise this. Maybe it was the break, the stopping completely for a few days, that helped to put it all into some kind of perspective, but finally, grudgingly, I think I’ve managed to achieve some kind of equilibrium. Some days I’ll be here, on others I won’t, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? I might mutter some nonsense about quality over quantity, but that would assume a level and definition of quality that you know as well as I do would be ridiculous at best. The important thing is to realise that whatever catharsis I’m achieving is a bonus, an added extra, “value added material” if you will, or maybe even an Easter Egg as modern parlance has it.

Of course, I already realise that once again all I’ve managed to achieve is a few paragraphs of self-indulgent, introspective nonsense about the process of writing these pieces again instead of what I sat down to actually write about. Happily my recent silence means that you’ve missed out on my rather oblique thoughts on some of the significant, world-changing events that one or two of you might have experienced in recent days, but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ll return and write about those things on another day, or maybe I won’t. The sun’s been shining, the world’s kept turning and the days have been slipping away with unfulfilled promise. Life, as they say, is getting back to normal, and everything in the garden is just peachy.