I have learned a couple of reasonably important lessons from blogging this week.
The first, as it occurs to me, is that is comforting to realise that I can learn new lessons, and am not, as yet, entirely set in my ways; I'll explain. I have just, prior to typing this, deleted a post that ran to several thousand words, which I'd been working on for a couple of days, but I just couldn't get it to work. It bore the title above, which was a reference to the fact that I don't drive, and the ire it seems to excite in some people. I made a fairly apposite comparison to Piers Morgan's performative rage about the arrival of the vegan sausage roll, my point being, if you don't like it, don't eat it. Likewise, if you object to my lifestyle choice, that's fine, but keep it to yourself. I expanded on this with a brief discursion into how it appears that intolerance is a growth industry at the moment. I thought I made a few good points, but I just couldn't quite nail the tone, it just sounded a bit too self-satisfied, and there was no way I could quite describe my dislike of cars without implying criticism of the vast majority of you, who, I imagine, drive. Which was not my intention. There's bit too much division around at the moment, and I'd rather reserve my ire for those who truly deserve it.
(I'd started the piece by saying that I'd considered doing a political piece, and Lord knows there's enough to write about at the minute, but I reckoned you'd all like a bit of a break from that, too. Mind you, if things keep going as they are, it's going to be hard to avoid.)
The second, which follows from the first, was that it was relatively easy to just junk a load of work. When it comes to writing, I'm something of a hoarder, with folders and files full of half-finished ideas that I fully intend to get round to some day, so the idea of just binning a load of work would normally be anathema to me, but it felt quite relieving. By one of those strange co-incidences that the Universe throws up from time to time, I'm reading Jonathan Coe's Middle England at the moment, and last night read a passage where one of the characters bins most of a book that he's been working on all his life. It raised a smile (and felt particularly apt as I'd blogged about just this sort of co-incidence just a couple of weeks ago). I smiled at that. It certainly opens up new possibilities for me, in fact, I think I may go and delete a tranche of old shit just as soon as I'm done here, it might clarify things a little. So, if you want something trite that you can write over a picture of a woman in yoga gear standing on a cliff staring at a sunset and then post to Instagram then I suppose there's a lesson about letting things go in there somewhere.
And the third is a reiteration of the old saw about not judging a book etc. Because this is a pretty short piece (perfect for today's busy modern lifestyle!), but in terms of man hours, it's probably the longest one I've ever written, and I imagine there's probably a point in there somewhere as well, if you can be bothered looking.
The first, as it occurs to me, is that is comforting to realise that I can learn new lessons, and am not, as yet, entirely set in my ways; I'll explain. I have just, prior to typing this, deleted a post that ran to several thousand words, which I'd been working on for a couple of days, but I just couldn't get it to work. It bore the title above, which was a reference to the fact that I don't drive, and the ire it seems to excite in some people. I made a fairly apposite comparison to Piers Morgan's performative rage about the arrival of the vegan sausage roll, my point being, if you don't like it, don't eat it. Likewise, if you object to my lifestyle choice, that's fine, but keep it to yourself. I expanded on this with a brief discursion into how it appears that intolerance is a growth industry at the moment. I thought I made a few good points, but I just couldn't quite nail the tone, it just sounded a bit too self-satisfied, and there was no way I could quite describe my dislike of cars without implying criticism of the vast majority of you, who, I imagine, drive. Which was not my intention. There's bit too much division around at the moment, and I'd rather reserve my ire for those who truly deserve it.
(I'd started the piece by saying that I'd considered doing a political piece, and Lord knows there's enough to write about at the minute, but I reckoned you'd all like a bit of a break from that, too. Mind you, if things keep going as they are, it's going to be hard to avoid.)
The second, which follows from the first, was that it was relatively easy to just junk a load of work. When it comes to writing, I'm something of a hoarder, with folders and files full of half-finished ideas that I fully intend to get round to some day, so the idea of just binning a load of work would normally be anathema to me, but it felt quite relieving. By one of those strange co-incidences that the Universe throws up from time to time, I'm reading Jonathan Coe's Middle England at the moment, and last night read a passage where one of the characters bins most of a book that he's been working on all his life. It raised a smile (and felt particularly apt as I'd blogged about just this sort of co-incidence just a couple of weeks ago). I smiled at that. It certainly opens up new possibilities for me, in fact, I think I may go and delete a tranche of old shit just as soon as I'm done here, it might clarify things a little. So, if you want something trite that you can write over a picture of a woman in yoga gear standing on a cliff staring at a sunset and then post to Instagram then I suppose there's a lesson about letting things go in there somewhere.
And the third is a reiteration of the old saw about not judging a book etc. Because this is a pretty short piece (perfect for today's busy modern lifestyle!), but in terms of man hours, it's probably the longest one I've ever written, and I imagine there's probably a point in there somewhere as well, if you can be bothered looking.
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