I had a blog post in mind, half wrote it and then realised I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I did. Which, as I said previously is not something to worry about, but certainly not something to aim for either. I have a better way of conveying my thought, I think, and shall attempt to tomorrow when sleep is not such a pressing matter.

Today began with sunshine, but not enough to distract me from work. I got a lot done and finished early. I exercised. Then completed dinner before settling down in front of the television for the latest episode of Lost. It was a great episode. I followed this with about three hours of drawing study. My day ended with another chapter from the book about Honest Abe.

Nothing exceptional happened, but for most days that’s perfectly fine. For an ordinary day this was a very good one. I will try to make more like it. Mostly I think it is under my power to do so.

Over the years I have learnt to be careful in my selection of bedtime reading. I know I must avoid anything too stimulating or my brain will gradually warm up and sleep become impossible.

Something similar happens when I’ve been drawing just prior to closing my eyes for the night. As soon as the world goes dark, it lights up again with beautiful three dimensional drawings of whatever I’ve been sketching. Much to my chagrin these are many times better than I can actually draw.

Perhaps it is that annoyance that stops me from sleeping. You would think that the vividness of the images would be so much like a dream that I’d get to sleep all the more quick-sharp. However, I suspect the similarity to dreaming could actually be tricking my brain into thinking that I’m already asleep; hence it doesn’t bother to initiate the actual sleep sequence.

Whatever theory proves correct, the images are beautiful enough (again far beyond my actual capabilities) that this is a kind of insomnia I can live with.

Except tonight I’m worried.

Because I have been spending the evening drawing skulls. And I’m worried about what this might inspire when I close my eyes.

I can only pray that I’ll be lucky and get a band of friendly pirates.

It’s late again.

It’s the pictures, you see.

I’ve been working hard on developing the habit of drawing everyday, and now I can’t stop. The more my pencil flows the more time seems to flow with it and before I know what is going on it is late into the wee hours of the morning.

My sketchbook needs more pictures. It commands me to create them.

The trouble is: drawing doesn’t inspire writing. I need to read books in the evening to inspire blog wisdom. Unfortunately, anatomy books for the artist just don’t cut it. And so you get this kind of thing.

Blogging everyday hard.

I’m cheating today and just posting that it is too late to blog. I’ve run out of time. It is 3:30am. I got caught up in other stuff. And now I must go to bed before it gets light again.

I promised myself that I would post every day for 30 days. I never said it had to be good content. So this will do.

This. Will. Do.

So.

I feel like a complete idiot.

But perhaps others can learn from my mistake.

If you ever arrange a meeting with a myth, make sure you have the right personification. Else you may end up talking to a priest.

Around halfway through last week (it may have been Wednesday/may have been Thursday) I was checking my calendar and it suddenly dawned on me that we are in mid-April already.

My first thought was to dismiss this as a simple consequence of my general busyness and over-enjoyment of the fine weather. But then I thought, if anything, I’ve been less busy over the past few months. And the weather has only been good for a few days. And you know, even if I had been flat-out busy-in-the-sun all this year, mid-April is a ridiculous date to be at so soon. In fact, I’m looking at the date now and it says LATE April.

What the hell!

Anyway, I decided I need to get to the bottom of this, so on Friday I made a few phone calls, called in a favour and tomorrow I have a lunch meeting with old Father Time.

I know! I can hardly believe it either.

The annoying thing is that he insisted on this really expensive restaurant and I think he’s expecting me to pay. I guess Time don’t come cheap.

Fingers are shaking. Unfortunately not in perfect harmony with the keyboard. I’m just trying to write one of these blog post things in the 15 minutes it is supposed to take to write blog posts, rather than the essay length musings everything I start turns into.

So no beautiful passages here. Just plain old prose, and if I do everything right, with a few typos too.

Why would I do such a thing?

Because I’m jealous of the outlet most people have in their blogs where they can just type something and hit publish and then go take the rest of the day off. I’m the kind of person that can spend hours writing a stupid email. I even redraft those 140 (max) character tweets. Maddening.

There is hope for me though. I used to have a habit of halting my speech mid-sentence because I had thought of a better way to convey my thought. Broken sentences all over the place and I never really said anything. This has stopped now thanks to a solid dose of self abuse therapy.

My fingers are shaking because it frightens me to not give myself time to redraft something. I like to think carefully over matters, over several days, not commit myself to the publish button until I have thought things through properly. So as to not look the fool. So as not to waste my reader’s time.

Oh god, I almost missed the apostrophe on the possessive of reader! And I’ve run out of time to go back and read this thing through. Sorry for any mistakes. This is unfiltered by time.

It is easy to accomplish hypocrisy. We do it through our ignorance and sometimes through our laziness. It is rare that we do it on purpose.

Back in my university days, I used to share a small flat with my friend. We worked well together as flat-mates; he loved to cook, and I found cleaning up the dishes afterwards relaxing (once I’d unclogged the sink of potato peelings). But the peelings were not his only imperfection. He would produce great food, but I’d often have to wait until late at night to receive it.

The problem was that it took less food to sate his smaller frame. He would eat a couple of pistachios and it would keep him going for hours. I needed a full square meal every night. Preferably two.

One night, about two hours after what I considered to be a sane eating time, my stomach took over from my brain and began to rumble its anger. “Why won’t that boy cook?”, it said. “All he’s been doing all day is watching the telly, while you’ve been busy working your arse off.” It had indeed been a long day, so I rose from my chair and headed for the lounge to seek an answer from my telly-addicted friend.

But I never reached him.

Before I could, my brain kicked in, cried hypocrite, and reminded me of the washing-up I hadn’t done. He cooks; I tidy; that’s what we had agreed. I tried to convince myself that I’d had a busy day, was tired and so should be let off the hook. But I couldn’t convince myself and so dragged my body to the kitchen sink.

Oh, how high and mighty of me. What a good boy I was. But that’s not me. Not really. That’s just how I try to act, but I don’t always manage it.

Sometimes I know I’m acting hypocritically, but am too tired or scared to act how I think I should. Other times I’m completely unaware of it or have a habit I can’t break. I lambaste a racist joke, then laugh at one. I become upset when ignored, then ignore others. I ridicule someone’s sloppy dress-sense, then realise I have a stain on my shirt. That’s the worst one.

The easiest escape from hypocrisy would be to stop criticizing. If I never complained about anything—never tried to demand a higher standard from others—then perhaps I would feel less guilt when I failed to reach that standard myself.

But I do not want to be like that.

Criticism is good. I want people to reach that higher standard, just like I want to reach it for myself.

So. I acknowledge that I am a hypocrite from time to time. I refuse to be embarrassed when I get caught out. I’m not going to be defensive either. It is okay to accept that to some degree we are indeed the frauds we feared we were. It’s okay when you understand that everyone else has a little fraud in them too.

Because I should be able to tell you: ‘you really should drink less coffee’.

And you should be able to tell me: ‘you really should get more fresh air.’

And we should be able to nod in agreement. Or argue our case. To try and change together. Or ask for help improving ourselves. Or decide there are more important things in this world than drinking too much coffee indoors.

We should ask for this.

Because we are better at criticizing others than we are ourselves. And—as long as we listen—that’s okay.

From the Lynn News (my emphasis):

THREE West Norfolk police officers risked their lives to make a dramatic riverside arrest linked to the armed robberies at households and businesses across the area.

[...]

The male passenger ran into nearby marshland near the River Delph, hotly pursued by a firearms sergeant and a police constable based in Swaffham and a specialist police dog handler from Lynn.

The dog handler said: “As the tracker, I went into the water first with my dog and the other two followed behind. I thought it would just be up to our knees so I jumped in and ended up in thick sludge up to my neck.

“We thought that would be as bad as it would get but for most of the way we were wading through water full of algae and mud up to our necks and getting cut to bits.

“It was freezing cold and our protective clothing and belt rigs were weighing us down and there were a few times we thought we were in trouble, but the adrenalin took over and we were determined to find him.”

[...]

After 55 minutes in the freezing water and struggling with the onset of hypothermia, the three officers found the man holding on to a tree. As he passed out, they had to drag themselves and him out of the water.

[...]

The suspect and three officers were all taken to Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital to be treated for hypothermia and were later discharged. The officers, who do not want to be named, were back at work on Sunday evening.

Thank you.