30 December 2011

IMHO

In my humble opinion, blogging is an interesting and worthwhile past time, when used sensibly…

I love blogging, in that it serves a few functions for me…

a) Keeps me in touch with friends and relatives who with the best will in the world I cannot speak or visit with on a regular basis;

b) allows me to organise my thoughts and creative world in a way that writing on a blank sheet of A4 or a document in word doesn’t;

c) blogging is an interactive past time for me, in that I also follow other blogs and get all kinds of inspiration, confidence in my own thoughts and opinions, ideas and interests/involvement in my various fields of study and personal growth;

d) helps me part of a community that isn’t possible within the physical world as rarely are all my friends in one place at one time.. if ever;

e) and when I am working it showcases and offers a peek into my production process.

Where blogging goes a bit tiddles up is when others interpret my words in contexts they are not intended or within a different framework that the post was written in.  It can take me days to write one blog post – which in the real world is not an acceptable work rate.  Also blogging can sometimes overtake the actual “doing” part of my creative psyche and it is actually important sometimes to not be sat at the computer, but doing something physical instead.

More and more of this was happening over the past few months, so I have got into the habit of not blogging, and then have – horror of all horrors - drifted into the habit of not writing… and then it all becomes cyclical when the thoughts end up going around and round my head, rather than outpourings into the…. well where ever my random thoughts go when they leave my computer…

colouredpencilesblog

But this morning I felt the urge to blog and share with you my random thought experiment.

I feel at this moment in time as if I am in the “eye” of the storm.  This holiday season has been strangely surreal.  For once I have welcomed the absence of communication as this has meant the absence of worry or concern about receiving news which will affect the rest of my life and those closest to me. 

I am quite stoic about the news, just don’t know what I would do with it, quite at the moment with Britain being shut down for the festive season. Apart from the shops and car parks and public houses and……

Curiously though something else has happened to my personae - I haven’t been my habitual ebullient and somewhat snarky self, fending off all well wishers with a “bah humbug” and attempting to place myself in a state of grace that allows me to suspend realities of social convention and accept that it is quite normal for various humans inhabiting the world around me to behave like eejits and therefore disregard their aberrations as linked with seasonal insanity disorder (SID instead of SAD).

Instead I have been sitting outside of myself, mostly knitting (or facilitating the Tobster as he goes about his seasonal travelling), watching others still behaving in this manner.  What is different this year is that instead of pointing out the error of their ways and asking them to desist in my presence, or more usually removing myself from their orbit – I have just watched and “harvested” some of the most bizarre and comical moments – well what is one to do without Morecombe and Wise, with only Eastenders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street to keep me anchored in reality….? (mental note to check fire alarms, and that the first aid kit contains necessaries for unexpected deliveries..).

When I woke at stupid o’clock this morning with the reprise of yesterday’s vicious words, needs and demands, floating around my head, and the vile meal that we had eaten last night also repeating on me.  I really was at a loss as to how to deal with the situation and so then I went off on a bit of thought experiment…

I concluded:

  • No wonder the waitress tried to clear the evidence of the crime before we had finished eating! (honestly – DH was mid mouthful as the plate was being whisked away !!!).  She obviously wasn’t used to recognising empty plates – others were being returned having not even been touched.  In our defence we hadn’t lost our taste buds, we were just desperate for some quiet time and driven by the need to refuel.  

Even though I was cross at the time -  It really struck me how the tightening economy has an upside – can’t see the near empty pub surviving the current economic hardships, as well as some of those we are unfortunately have to deal with, as we go about our daily business, remaining employed.

Also there is hope for my cooking…

  • I reluctantly have to accept that there is nothing I can do or say anymore to convince some that I really do have a philosophy of living and have boundaries that are sacrosanct. 

Nothing, nada, will ever make me change my mind or approach on a couple of key issues – so bloody well stop trying.    It is not your job to “change” me or mine to replicate you and yours.  I do not disrespect you, but the tolerance of disrespect of mine is coming to an end. 

  • Finally, most importantly of all – the realisation that no material/experience is ever wasted. 

Have you ever noticed how successful characterisations are often reused time and time again?   If  you haven’t consciously, try watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill back to back.  You will see similar characteristics reprised and rewritten.

So perhaps this is what defines my idea of a good film – one totally re-watchable as there are familiar characters and plot lines I can identify with whatever my state of humour.  Familiar enough to be entertaining when watched, but distant enough as I don’t have to interact with the characterisations.

This is a bit like what has happened this holiday season.  I have only interacted with those I really have had to – because I actually wanted to. The rest I have managed to steer well clear of, as they go about their parallel universal way of working and thinking. 

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I have taken this thought experiment and played with it for a few more hours this morning after writing the above - and I am wondering if I have hit on what has behind my writing/craft block this year.  The realisation that I had recycled my favourite characters and processes to exhaustion – with very little private quiet thinking time available to me anymore and being endemically too tired/overwrought/depressed/worried (delete as appropriate) to actively find the energy to replenish the stock. 

Hadn’t occurred to me, that actually I could do nothing and just let it all come to me !

With my pragmatic head on….

I shall never be short of a stereotypical comically absurd character again….simples…

Then I can free my mind to create colour, joy and warmth with my textiles and then… the possibilities are endless. 

I have a feeling I am going to enjoy this coming writing year as I plot and orchestrate some fun with my cast of absurd characters – as they interact with some of my more delightful humane ones – based on those whom I am blessed to know in real life as friends and family.

Will you recognise yourself?  I wonder….

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