Saturday 12 July 2014

Oh to not care

Months and months ago I set out to turn over a new leaf in the documenting of my life.  Sounds grand, doesn't it?  Well, it might have been grand had the perfectionist inside of me not scuppered everything.

You will surely not have overlooked the fact that, since putting finger to (virtual) keyboard back in those heady days before the coming of Easter ... or the Tour de Yorkshire ... I have failed to publish a single blog entry.  This is pretty poor, even by my standards, but really isn't for want of trying.  I've now lost count of the number of articles I've written.  Articles on my sailing trip in the Clyde, articles on journeys in the past, and even pieces - just like this one - bemoaning my complete inability to finish and post a post.

I'n pretty sure that virtually every non-perfectionist thinks that to be one means to be perfect.  Nothing, at least in my own experience, could be further from the truth.  To be a perfectionist is to write every sentence ten times; to review and counter-review; to dot every "i", cross every "t" and ponder eternally over the merest hint of a split infinitive.  The perfectionist is cursed to spend their lives in search of the very best metaphor, whilst worrying that it might actually be an analogy; to search deep in the recesses of their poor cluttered brain for a certain word, as only that one will do; and to not stop writing, editing, or worrying until they are absolutely, completely, one-hundred-and-ten-percent positive that everything is absolutely perfect ... which, of course, it never is.

So, this is why, I have umpteen unfinished articles sitting in a little bit of cyberspace, just waiting for hell to freeze over and my resolve to slip, allowing them to be shown to the world in all their 99% perfect glory.

But that isn't the end of the story, as you will have guessed from the appearance of this not-quite-perfect-post.  I simply cannot go on like this.  I need to write!

So , here is my plan, not my first one I should say, but let's brush over that.  I'm going to do a little deal with you, my dearest and most valued reader.  I will write more posts, tell you a bit about what I'm up to now, and what I've done in the past, if you promise solemnly never to comment on the inadequacies of my spelling or grammar, the structure of my prose, the lack of imagination in my storytelling, the factual errors and blatant, omissions, the things I shouldn't have bothered with and those I should have but didn't, or the fact that I am about to break my original promise of writing only about over there and not the here and now at home.  This is a rebirth or sorts, a freeing of the self-imposed shackles with which I had previously constrained my own thoughts.  I will now write about anything and everything (within reason...), and enjoy it.

1 comment:

  1. Great blog Robert ! Nothing on South Wales though ?

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