All those who wander are not lost
those who wander have their reasons
All those who blunder need not cry
there is still time before they die
All that is dark is not so bad
it is the birthplace of strength and resolution
All that is lonely is not so sad
there are those among us who are still glad
You may have been born in winter
darkness may have been your home so far
There is a heart yet that was born in that cold
but it needs to be roused awake and not just told
.............
See. I can still write. And rhyme as well. At least partly. At least badly.
When you sit to write once every six months, this is what happens. The act of writing itself becomes the subject matter.
For example, I did not generate the above stanzas with ChatGPT. It would have produced something of far better quality and that’s how you know. Exactly then, why do we write when it can do it for us?
Qs: What exactly is there to write about? Poetry? About emotions? About fictional stories? Real ones? What's the point really? What are we going to write here that is unique enough compared to all that has already been written, that it is still worth writing about? And we need not even start down the set of questions starting with “Why..”
Which is why I do not write enough these days. At least that is the first bump as I get started on this road. It is only a bump, as you are well aware with all your wisdom. But it is enough of a bump and the road looks to be sloping down from here on and my bike is not good enough to handle the curves. There are dead ends which need good brakes and there are ditches which need to be avoided. And there needs to be an excellent destination to arrive at, and beautiful scenery along the way to make the whole effort worthwhile. My bike is not good enough to do all that. At least, it hasn’t been tested enough. In other words, I am not a good enough writer.
And guess what, I have too many things to do to bother with improving the bike by the means of training and testing it. In other words, I am lazy.
Well, I stop at the first bump. I have enough reasons to. And there are sinister impulses deep in my psyche that I won’t ever give voice to, but they find these reasons - these questions - very good to hide behind. They get to do more fun things when they can steal time and energy from other tasks. Fun things like being lazy. Or other even more fun things like consuming - not just food and drinks.
You see, producing is hard. Producing something worth sharing or beholding is really hard. But consuming - that is so easy. Easy enough to do it all the time. Abundant enough to be able to keep doing it for eternity.
A thousand anyways' and whatevers later, another draft of pointless paragraphs lies herein that won’t be worked towards anything worth publishing. Another “post” that will remain unfinished and forgotten in this dark folder full of unfinished and forgotten posts. This folder is slowly becoming forbidden too, as its dominant smell slowly turns into guilt rather than potential. It should not be allowed to.
One would think I’d be foolish if I allowed it to degrade to that degree. Only time will tell, and the answer probably lies in how long it takes for it to tell.