First Anniversary Thoughts

When I started this blog, it was going to be about all the things about working and life in the UK that drove me crazy or irritated me. I was going through a very uncertain period at The Bank, when I and many others thought we would be out of work by the end of June. I thought I would have significant things to say about... well, something.

Well, I don't. The older I get, the less I know and the less advice I have for anyone about anything. (Except: always use Dulux Trade paint and a roller for that professional look and one-coat cover.) Writing this has made me look around the blogosphere and that has made me realise just how little I have to say about anything. There are guys with Fields Medals writing blogs with real research mathematics in them. There are guys discussing Hollywood scripts before they are produced, and girls writing fashion blogs with larger readerships than some magazines. Check out the links: this time round I had a hard look for the best of the best in the subjects I like.

I don't have a cute style either, and that's an important part of making a popular blog. With a few exceptions (The Art of the State, Style Bubble), the best blogs are written by Americans: the British tend to be too involved with politics or too intent on documenting exactly how some aspect of life in Britain really sucks. Which was where I started and soon veered off. Americans get what's needed for a good personal blog: choose a subject you like that other people want to know about and write about it usually in an upbeat, and always in a confident, way. I'm still trying to get there.

Heck, it took me some time to find the right title - that is, one I didn't want to change a couple of weeks after I thought it was cute. The idea for this title came from the titles Rumi Neely gives her postings and from the way I feel about communicating with people. I have a lot of clutter going round in my head. About what I'm reading, the movies I watch, the news I hear, what happens to me at work, what I feel about my life. Most of it is transient, like the weather. I need to say it like the clouds need to rain, but I don't always need anyone to hear it. I'm a man, and outside work men only communicate with other people under two circumstances: 1) when shooting the breeze, 2) when they need advice or help on some practical matter.

Writing that clutter down gets it out of my head and onto the page where it can stay. Writing it in a reasonably concise, snappy style makes me think about what I'm really trying to say, which means, what I'm really trying to think. Writing stuff down is one of the most important parts of an AA recovery: put it on the page and it won't trouble you anymore. Writing down whatever is taking space in my head lets me move on. In Meetings, we share for ourselves, not to invite comment and help. If anyone listening finds what we say useful, so much the better. This is the same.