The Answer to the question posed in the first part of the title is a hard and convoluted one. I could think of No Better Way to answer it. So here goes.
As an aside, the answer to the question in the second part is quite evident, as will be quite evident shortly.
So, here goes [take two]
Writing, as with many things in life, requires practice. I am out of practice. I will tend to ramble. I tend to ramble anyway. Now I will ramble decidedly, in an unpracticed manner. Or I will ramble in a decidedly unpracticed manner. Practice makes perfect, so you can safely assume my rambling will be quite imperfect. Does imperfect rambling score over perfect rambling? Is this a question for the ages? Or the Sages?
Here goes. [take three]
Here went.
First, let me get something out of the way.
There is a reunion happening later in the year. I last posted a blog just before the previous reunion. Over the years of not writing, I thought (nearly, rashly, promised myself, something I almost never do) that I would write again before the next one.
The reunion is almost upon us.
LSD. Last Sem. Desperation. Hence.
Here goes. [iv]
I have been told (people have told me) that my writing is marginally better when I write about matters major or minor concerning my family or between me and my long suffering wife, who is also my long suffering muse, the inspiration behind my life, my window of perception, the doors to my soul, the mother of my children, who watches me bumble through life, without guffawing too loudly.
One must take what one gets.
Many blogs might not have seen the light of day had she not been around... because quite frankly, most likely neither would I. Most of my life would have been spent sleeping the hours of the day away.
So at long last here goes. [v]
My curtailment from writing. Why did it happen? Was it an acute form of writer's block? Was it something more sinister?
Hordes of people have been clamouring for answers. This is for all three of them.
The answers to all these questions lie in the law of evidence.
Each country has its own system of law. This system decides what is admissible as evidence or argument in a court of law and what is not. This is a very crucial aspect of the law since the outcome of justice often hinges upon what can be said or produced or evidenced. Lives can be at stake.
Now coming to me.
I am by nature, as I have confessed many times before, a very lazy person. Exceedingly so. I absolutely abhor doing things. I am perfectly happy with things getting done as long as the doer is someone outside of my corporal self. If there are do-ers and do-ees in the world, I am the non-do-ing-er.
Before I got married, I used to be known as the immovable object.
We all know, of course, what happened when the immovable object (me) met an irresistible force (my wife).
The immovable object bought a bicycle and started cycling to work three times a week. And on the Sundays that he was not swimming he went on hikes with said irresistible force.
Apart from these decidedly corporal activities that she induces me into participating in, there are also things that I need to do around the house - apart from of course as I have mentioned in previous blogs - taking care of spiders, lizards and other vermin, ensuring the toothpaste tube is perennially top heavy and of course making sure her smartphone is working as she would want it to.
Beyond all these onerous tasks and duties, there is one more: the dreaded To Do List.
It is a magical substance that is entirely made up of things that have an innate ability to squirm themselves out of the tenuous, ephemeral, fit-for-dandelions-only-vice like grip of my annoyingly easily distracted mind. It is made up of things that continually keep extricating themselves from my consciousness. These magical beings are thought-shifters and shape-shifters as is the TDL. Now-You-See-Them-Now-You-Don't.
The moment I am reminded of them, everything is crystal clear - I remember how we first spoke about me doing it, then when we next discussed a couple of weeks post how I would go about doing it, then when I was reminded to now-start-doing-it and then how I was best placed to do it and then a few days following that conversation how she resignedly sighed and said she would do it and save me the hassle and how I resolutely said that I and only I would do it and that I was firm and that it would be done and that I absolutely insist and then followed weeks of peace and nothingness till suddenly IT IS THERE AGAIN!
The strangest most utterly astounding fact is that I don't even know what IT is!
These lists are written in invisible ink on invisible paper made up of invisible tasks that come to life and visibility (in the reverse order, maybe) only when my wife chances upon them - and me together.
Previously blank pieces of paper - I could have sworn it was completely blank - suddenly have a neatly labelled list with items 7 and 19 struck off as having been done. Done. Done. DONE!
Who did those two? Was it me? Why did I start at number 7 and then jump to number 19? Did I strike them off as having been done? Can you do handwriting analysis on horizontal lines? Am I an amnesiac who is sleep walking through life doing items 7 and 19 on To Do Lists?
Why only those two and why are both those numbers prime? Why only Nitrogen and Potassium?
As an aside, the answer to the question in the second part is quite evident, as will be quite evident shortly.
So, here goes [take two]
Writing, as with many things in life, requires practice. I am out of practice. I will tend to ramble. I tend to ramble anyway. Now I will ramble decidedly, in an unpracticed manner. Or I will ramble in a decidedly unpracticed manner. Practice makes perfect, so you can safely assume my rambling will be quite imperfect. Does imperfect rambling score over perfect rambling? Is this a question for the ages? Or the Sages?
Here goes. [take three]
Here went.
First, let me get something out of the way.
There is a reunion happening later in the year. I last posted a blog just before the previous reunion. Over the years of not writing, I thought (nearly, rashly, promised myself, something I almost never do) that I would write again before the next one.
The reunion is almost upon us.
LSD. Last Sem. Desperation. Hence.
Here goes. [iv]
I have been told (people have told me) that my writing is marginally better when I write about matters major or minor concerning my family or between me and my long suffering wife, who is also my long suffering muse, the inspiration behind my life, my window of perception, the doors to my soul, the mother of my children, who watches me bumble through life, without guffawing too loudly.
One must take what one gets.
Many blogs might not have seen the light of day had she not been around... because quite frankly, most likely neither would I. Most of my life would have been spent sleeping the hours of the day away.
So at long last here goes. [v]
My curtailment from writing. Why did it happen? Was it an acute form of writer's block? Was it something more sinister?
Hordes of people have been clamouring for answers. This is for all three of them.
The answers to all these questions lie in the law of evidence.
Each country has its own system of law. This system decides what is admissible as evidence or argument in a court of law and what is not. This is a very crucial aspect of the law since the outcome of justice often hinges upon what can be said or produced or evidenced. Lives can be at stake.
Now coming to me.
I am by nature, as I have confessed many times before, a very lazy person. Exceedingly so. I absolutely abhor doing things. I am perfectly happy with things getting done as long as the doer is someone outside of my corporal self. If there are do-ers and do-ees in the world, I am the non-do-ing-er.
Before I got married, I used to be known as the immovable object.
We all know, of course, what happened when the immovable object (me) met an irresistible force (my wife).
The immovable object bought a bicycle and started cycling to work three times a week. And on the Sundays that he was not swimming he went on hikes with said irresistible force.
Apart from these decidedly corporal activities that she induces me into participating in, there are also things that I need to do around the house - apart from of course as I have mentioned in previous blogs - taking care of spiders, lizards and other vermin, ensuring the toothpaste tube is perennially top heavy and of course making sure her smartphone is working as she would want it to.
Beyond all these onerous tasks and duties, there is one more: the dreaded To Do List.
It is a magical substance that is entirely made up of things that have an innate ability to squirm themselves out of the tenuous, ephemeral, fit-for-dandelions-only-vice like grip of my annoyingly easily distracted mind. It is made up of things that continually keep extricating themselves from my consciousness. These magical beings are thought-shifters and shape-shifters as is the TDL. Now-You-See-Them-Now-You-Don't.
The moment I am reminded of them, everything is crystal clear - I remember how we first spoke about me doing it, then when we next discussed a couple of weeks post how I would go about doing it, then when I was reminded to now-start-doing-it and then how I was best placed to do it and then a few days following that conversation how she resignedly sighed and said she would do it and save me the hassle and how I resolutely said that I and only I would do it and that I was firm and that it would be done and that I absolutely insist and then followed weeks of peace and nothingness till suddenly IT IS THERE AGAIN!
The strangest most utterly astounding fact is that I don't even know what IT is!
These lists are written in invisible ink on invisible paper made up of invisible tasks that come to life and visibility (in the reverse order, maybe) only when my wife chances upon them - and me together.
Previously blank pieces of paper - I could have sworn it was completely blank - suddenly have a neatly labelled list with items 7 and 19 struck off as having been done. Done. Done. DONE!
Who did those two? Was it me? Why did I start at number 7 and then jump to number 19? Did I strike them off as having been done? Can you do handwriting analysis on horizontal lines? Am I an amnesiac who is sleep walking through life doing items 7 and 19 on To Do Lists?
Why only those two and why are both those numbers prime? Why only Nitrogen and Potassium?
Am I under some sort of spell? Am I under the thrall of some latter day Dr. Mesmer? Is there a me from a parallel universe who comes across and does things for me? Specifically things 7 and 19? Why is he not doing the rest of the things? How do I make him do the rest of the things? Why are there multiple "It's" on my list? What is this list? Am I...? Who am I?
When at first My Irresistible Force asked me about the TDL, I tried to bluff my way out. Then I tried to rationalize my way out - first to her and then to myself. Then I tried to fight my way out. Then I tried to squirm my way out, but the story repeated itself. There was stuff. And I was not doing it. After I said I would. Everything was clear as day when we speak and later, just hours later or maybe minutes later, I am unable to say what IT was that was IT.
Then I figured. There is a way.
These things can pass. There is a way out. There is a way around darkness. More darkness.
I saw the light.
They said in a lot of old murder mysteries that there is no murder (and consequently no murderer) till the body is found. The perfect crime might be one where there is no body.
I had to remove all substances that could be perceived as evidence. Evidence of time. Evidence of intelligence. Evidence of thought. Evidence of the capability to remember Anything and consequently evidence that you could also remember IT. Evidence that one could do Something and consequently that one could do IT.
I took the easy way out.
I got rid of the body.
If I didn't have time to write blog, I must be very busy indeed.
Final note: I still haven't figured out what IT is.
