DON’T, JUST… DON’T

I’m going to make a radical and, perhaps, even slightly dangerous suggestion today.

Has that got you intrigued, yet? Because really, it shouldn’t.

Okay, when I say “dangerous” I might be slightly exaggerating, but no more than saying that appearing in public whilst not wearing make-up is in any way “brave”. Running towards a machine-gun emplacement full of people who really want to kill you is brave; Juggling live sticks of dynamite after you’ve lit the fuses is dangerous. Just asking you not to read something that I’ve written is perhaps foolhardy when it comes to wasting my own time, but little more than this.

I’m simply going to ask you not to read this blog.

That’s right, you read that correctly: Step away from the blog… Walk away and don’t look back.

There, that was easy wasn’t it? You’ve suddenly got five more minutes to fill and I don’t have to worry about anyone getting upset or annoyed by anything else that I might have to say as I spew these, my daily madnesses, out into the big, wide and ultimately uncaring universe.

Still here? Okay, fair enough, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

Obviously, I am running the risk that you’ve decided to hang around in any case and persisted with it, and so you might find out the awful things I'm about to discuss, but that’s now down to you and, to be honest, the point that I was about to make is probably going to be completely lost on you anyway if you can’t take the hint.

Still, when it comes to something so wrapped up in the written word, perhaps suggesting that you don’t read it might not seem to be the wisest course of action to be taking, but there is a point to all this and, as you’ve all drifted away by now, there’s no point in me hurrying to get there when I can ramble on a little more whilst I’m getting my so-called “thoughts” together.

So, why have I decided to resurrect my usual self-destructive tendency and suggest such a thing? After all, something that is written is presumably meant to be read, and when it’s put out there for all the world to see, then I obviously want it to be seen, don’t I?

Well, yes and no.

After all, we all have our reasons for doing things and sometimes they aren’t necessarily the ones that other people decide that they are. Personally, other than helping me to remember a few things that I might otherwise forget or bury in an illegible diary somewhere, I enjoy the actual process of just rattling out a few words for no real purpose and, sometimes, I think that one or two specific people might enjoy reading those words, but the rest could just be considered as collateral damage or civilian casualties when people walk away from their devices with a touch of brain burn from reacting to something I’ve written.

Not their fault, of course, although sometimes it damn well is.

Because, at the risk of creating a winning entry for a “State the bleeding obvious competition” this has got more to do with pointing out that you really, really don’t have to read this nonsense just because it happens to be here, even if I do go around posting links to it by putting my grubby little fingerprints all over various social networking sites and suggesting that you might like to.

Just because something is there to be read, looked at, or heard, doesn’t mean that you have to waste quite so much of your time reading it, looking at it, or listening to it, especially as 99.99% of all of it is most likely to be utter rubbish anyway and is really not worth your attention and much of it just stops you from thinking for a few moments and coming to your own conclusions about the madnesses of this strangely interactive world we’re cooking up for ourselves.

But we do live in a culture where people feel that they simply cannot let it lie, or believe that they can choose to just ignore something if they want to, and really don’t have to add their own version of what they currently “reckon” right at this very moment to the thousands of other “reckons” that they might have taken offence to.

So that’s what they think. Big deal. Just let it go and leave them to stew in their own juices and rage away to themselves because you’ve not taken the bait. We all need to learn to just say no to the constant babblings, ravings and streams of abuse because, despite what we’d prefer to believe, nobody really gives a rat’s kidney what we think, they’re far too busy spewing out what they think themselves to actually care.

Step away from the madness. Just because the comment is there does not mean that you have to add your own to it, especially if you feel that you ought to say something, no matter how banal it might be, rather than just feel as if you are somehow ceasing to exist by not responding. Because, guess what, you are still here after all (although your endless pointless prattling might have got you evicted from a timeline or two) and it doesn’t matter that you didn’t actually say whatever it was you thought of, the important thing is that you thought it at all, and that ought to be enough really, and you may very well have also found wisdom and enlightenment from rising above such temptations.

And you really mustn’t worry about little old me, either. Like so many of the other natural unpleasantnesses of life, this blog pours out whether or not you choose to read it, and it’ll still be here on any other day for you to read, should you be mad enough to choose to return to it.

And it really is a choice, you know… Although I wouldn’t if I were you, I really wouldn’t.