A Couple of Months is a Long Time in Blogland.
It seems like a veritable age since I wrote my last blog. Indeed, it's coming up to around two months since I last put finger to keyboard. So what, I hear you all ask with eager anticipation, has provoked such an unusually long hiatus?
Well, for a start, I seem to have hit a period of writer's block. I simply cannot think of what to write. And, as I once wrote a blog about not being able to write (entitled "Writer's Blog"), I can't even write about that! So once again I trawled the Internet for possible subjects. My main topic of mental health was again in the news recently, with the revelation that doctors were sectioning patients not because of clinical need, but just so as to get them hospital treatment. This apparent impingement of rights was being done because professionals could see no other way to get patients treatment in an otherwise over-burdened service. It was a good story about a system pushed to the brink by cuts, but I felt I wanted to write about something other than mental health, as I sometimes do. But, having searched my apparently empty brain and scoured the creaking corridors of both memory and imagination, I came up with this: nothing.
So, perhaps I could actually write a blog about "nothing". As in, what is "nothing"? Well, as far as I know, nothing would be the absence of anything, and is often associated with "nothingness", which, according to that ever abundant source of information, Wikipedia, is the state of being nothing, the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing. Of course, "nothing" has proved to be a great subject for philosophers throughout the ages, but the work I am most familiar with is Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", in which the great thinker argued that consciousness (or, as he put it, etre-poir-soi) is "nothing" since consciousness cannot be an object of consciousness and can possess no essence. Or something like that.
Apparently, Sartre's great work was influenced by Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" ("Sein und Zeit"), which brings us around to the subject of time. And, what better person to talk about time than the great physicist Albert Einstein, who said, "put your hand in a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." So, time is relative, I suppose, and while a couple of months may not seem like that long in the grand scheme of things, it certainly is out here in blogland.
Well, for a start, I seem to have hit a period of writer's block. I simply cannot think of what to write. And, as I once wrote a blog about not being able to write (entitled "Writer's Blog"), I can't even write about that! So once again I trawled the Internet for possible subjects. My main topic of mental health was again in the news recently, with the revelation that doctors were sectioning patients not because of clinical need, but just so as to get them hospital treatment. This apparent impingement of rights was being done because professionals could see no other way to get patients treatment in an otherwise over-burdened service. It was a good story about a system pushed to the brink by cuts, but I felt I wanted to write about something other than mental health, as I sometimes do. But, having searched my apparently empty brain and scoured the creaking corridors of both memory and imagination, I came up with this: nothing.
So, perhaps I could actually write a blog about "nothing". As in, what is "nothing"? Well, as far as I know, nothing would be the absence of anything, and is often associated with "nothingness", which, according to that ever abundant source of information, Wikipedia, is the state of being nothing, the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing. Of course, "nothing" has proved to be a great subject for philosophers throughout the ages, but the work I am most familiar with is Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", in which the great thinker argued that consciousness (or, as he put it, etre-poir-soi) is "nothing" since consciousness cannot be an object of consciousness and can possess no essence. Or something like that.
Apparently, Sartre's great work was influenced by Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" ("Sein und Zeit"), which brings us around to the subject of time. And, what better person to talk about time than the great physicist Albert Einstein, who said, "put your hand in a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." So, time is relative, I suppose, and while a couple of months may not seem like that long in the grand scheme of things, it certainly is out here in blogland.
Comments
Well, just passing by on my way from loading in the first post I've done in a bit. I saw that you had nothing going on and thought to wish you many more happy moments. Sometimes nothing going on is a real treat at the old "dc" community!
Take care, my blogging pal.
Most sincerely, Dixie
Many thanks for your comment. As you say, sometimes nothing going on can be a treat, or no news is good news, as the old saying goes. But I'd just like to say that you sure are somethin', Dixie!
Very Best Wishes, from your blogging pal,
David.
However, I must say that I always enjoyed your knowledgeable posts about movies. How about something on that topic? No need for existentialist angst!
Best regards, Bazza.
I did wonder where you'd got to, me old fruit, and I do hope you can get back to giving us more of your informative posts on your own blog.
As for me, it's been existential angst all the way. I suppose I could have written something about movies, but it's just finding an interesting slant. No doubt, though, I could manage to put up something on that subject. For now, though, existential angst will have to do. After all, I have had lots of practice at it!
Thanks bazza, and I hope to be commenting on your blog soon.
Very Best Wishes,
David.
Ah, finally I have darkened the door of your blog site. So to speak. Of course, I sat in front of my computer for two months eagerly anticipating your next posting.
As you know, we've discussed there is no such thing as writer's block, or blogger's block. Just inanely write about the notion that you have such a blockage and thus, the blockage that wasn't really there, has cleared.
You blink your eyes in blogland and yet another ridiculous blogfest rears its ugly head.
And time really does depend on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
Very nice to see you on Sunday evening. I can make anybody yawn with my idle chit chat.
Must go now and watch the toaster....
Gary
Yes, it was very nice to be bored by you on Sunday evening. I can think of worse people to be bored by! And, thanks for waiting for my much anticipated posting on, erm, "nothing". I suppose, as bazza says, my existential angst was coming to the fore. And, to leave on a literary note, our conversation on Sunday did remind me somewhat of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", in which the character of Estragon says to Vladimir, "We always find something, eh, Didi, to give us the impression we exist?" In other words, Gare, I must go now to watch some paint dry while awaiting my imminent demise. Oh, the futility of life!
Very Best Wishes,
David.