Considering a Change of Tack.

It often happens that I dream up a blog post during the day when I’m doing some job or other. (Today I pruned the biggest and oldest of the lilac trees in my garden. I always feel mortified by my capacity for brutality when I prune a tree, and always apologise to the poor thing and offer some sort of rationale which rarely fails to sound disingenuous.) But then when I finally sit in front of the computer with the night having fallen, and the curtains having been closed, and a cup of coffee having been made, which is usually around a quarter past ten, I can’t be bothered.

It happened again today. The post was going to be on the subject of life plans and goals, neither of which finds much favour with me. I could perfectly well explain why I find them mostly pointless if only I had the mental energy to do so, but I don’t. The mental energy is sadly lacking at a quarter past ten at night in the circumstances heretofore described. So forget that one (for now.)

At such times I consider whether I should transfer my blogging habit to a vlogging habit and take my place in the hallowed halls of YouTube with the great and the good. I wouldn’t expect to make any money out of it because I don’t need money. What I need are sparks, not spending power. I’m not much of a consumer, you see. Most of my clothes come from charity shops, I’ve never been one for taking holidays because the effort involved always seemed to outweigh the benefit, I eat simply, I live frugally, and I rarely engage in communal activities of any kind because I have little patience with people or their silly cultural activities.

The advantage with vlogging would be that I could just sit here and ramble. I wouldn’t have a keyboard draining my mental energy and irritating me because I’m not much of a typist and have to keep changing alos to also. But there are two major drawbacks:

1. I would have to get expensive equipment like a camera and things. I expect I would have to get editing software. And most of all, I would have to learn new skills and I think I’ve learned enough of those for one lifetime already.

2. People would see what I look like, so I would have to consider the question of a watershed. Children might accidentally click onto the JJ vlog irrespective of any warning I might place at the beginning with regard to parental guidance. And then they might have nightmares about this frowning, forbidding figure who looks like a cross between Quasimodo and Wurzel Gummidge with a bit of Methuselah thrown in. And if people can be so stupid as to destroy phone masts and attack British Telecoms engineers because they’ve read somewhere on the internet that 5G is responsible for coronavirus, how might an irate parent react upon being woken up at 4am by some hysterical kid who wants to talk about its nightmare in a squeaky voice? I could get lynched (or even driven to the burning mill by men armed with pitchforks, to reprise an old and cherished theme.) And the probability of the Lady B ever talking to me again would lose the 1% it currently holds. (Happy 3^rd, by the way, if you happen to be within earshot. Sorry I’m a day late.)

So that’s today’s blog post. What a lot of effort it took. Was it worth it? Is it ever worth it? Is anything ever worth anything? Shutting up now. Off to YouTube.