I Start Again


This blog started as a place for occasional philosophical essays. But they weren't very good, so I deleted them and started writing about my life - hoping vaguely to pull the same trick as Joe Orton, turning real life into art. But it turns out you need an interesting life to do that.

For a decade I wrote about whatever seemed:
(1) Interesting at the time to me, and
(2) Easy to read for others on account of being not deep or technical.

Which is odd, as most of what's interesting to me is quite technical and occasionally even deep.

A decade of abortive affairs (C, M, D, C again, B) , failed occupations, unfinished songs, unstarted novels, and following around a party of politicos until I gradually realised:
(1) I didn't need them (anymore) as a support group, and
(2) Their philosophical insights which had once seemed fascinating were, well...gibberish.

Then in early 2015 I got depression. I generally get depression in winter and it's something I've just learned to sit through, but this black pit was blacker and pittier than usual.

And then my father was hospitalised with pneumonia. And then mother was stuck down with something similar. And then I got it. We managed to nurse each other through it all.

So. Blog. Time for a re-evaluation. And also re-launch, re-trospective and re-ality check.

There's no reason not to write stuff which some other people might find uninteresting, difficult, left-field etc. But there is a reason to write. I don't know what that reason is, because it's emotional not rational and I'm not on speaking terms with my emotions, but there's a reason.

2 comments:

  1. I so relate to this post. My winter depression was very bad this year and falling on the ice and injuring my knee didn't help.

    I keep writing blog posts and then deleting them. Maybe one day I'll get up the courage to publish and be damned.

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  2. I made myself a promise when I started blogging: Never delete posts. Updating is fine, but if you thought it was justified to post when you posted it, treat it as justified.

    The only effective way I've found to deal with depression is: Distract yourself from it. And if that means writing an awful 300 page novel of christian Worf/Riker slashfic and publishing each chapter on your blog - go for it.

    As for finding courage...I suspect courage isn't something you find. It's something you realise you found without noticing when you were concentrating on doing something else.

    I say "suspect". "Hope" would also fit.

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