The problem with having writing on a computer – more specifically, writing a blog, is that it is way too easy to start tinkering.
There, at the top of the screen as I write, is a tab shouting "Design". Writing is hard, I’m easily distracted, and this tab holds out a promising invitation – yea, life would be so much better if I could just get that shade of blue for my banner – you know, the one that happens in the evening sky that makes everything so clear and your heart ache. Now that, I think, would communicate something meaningful.
Next to this tab is one shouting "configure", calling to my nerd soul, a promise of some as-of-yet unfound setting that will make this the coolest blog ever (though I am way past the age where anything I do could, or should, be labeled ‘cool’). And off I go, techman on the loose, wandering through tip pages and tracking down obscure template tags.
Or that tab with my bookmarks, promising something inspiring. Off I go visiting my haunts to see what’s up, maybe write about something aside from my self here, practice commentary, I think, become a respected … well, something grandiose here. And, hours later it is past time for lunch, past time for bed, and my brain is too fogged from this aimless journey to write anything at all.
Good writing stems from honest connection, I believe, and after traipsing about for hours, well, I’ve read a lot of interesting stuff, but don’t feel connected to anything. Lease of all my own life, which is where all good connection starts.
Thinking about this mind fog today, why I never get to writing, I realized it felt familiar. It felt like the fog that seems to settle over me when I go to the video store. When I am walking down the street with Carl, and I say "You hungry" and he says "Yea, where do you want to go?"