Friday, November 18, 2005

Clamming Up on the Soapbox

I've been online in one form or another for a good while, having started many years back with a blazing 1200 baud modem on local BBS's when what was going to emerge eventually as the internet was still a loose knit network o' nerds' computers held together with spit, Band-Aids™, and paper clips. In all that time I've found myself yo-yoing in my desire to write at length about things, particularly in e-mails. In my various manifestations of persona I openly solicit mails from strangers, inviting and encouraging them to send me their comments, thoughts, questions, and such about whatever my soapbox topic happens to be at the time, and I always do my very best to keep up with my replies to them. There come, though, these annoying and conscience pricking dry spells during which I send to the back burner bunches of mails to which I don't feel like responding when they arrive, intending with all good intentions of writing worthy responses to them. I'm in such doldrums of correspondence at present. I've been here for some time now. I don't know why.

I feel bad about not writing prompt replies, but I get to the point where it feels like I'm back at college with a term paper looming and all desire to work on it goes right out the window every time I sit down with the intention of beginning. The longer I wait, the bigger the pile gets, and the more frustrated I become in wanting to attack the mountain but lacking all ambition to do it. I beat myself up about not tending to the mails, but then I come here to write instead, or I walk away from the PC to see if there's something relatively mindless on TV. I can't seem to get myself at all motivated to answer my mails. Even some long, good, juicy ones from close friends. I know they deserve better than my bouts of silence, and yet I just can't write the letters that wait to be written. And as I sit here watching the "Answer" sub-folder in my inbox get bigger and bigger my eagerness to write those answers varies indirectly with the number of mails.

Part of the reason that I get this way at this time of year is simply that it's this time of year. It's nearly dark before Dee gets home from work. The garden which I tended faithfully all summer is withered and beaten. It's cold, and before long the snow will begin to fly. During the day when the sun is warm and a few magnificently colored leaves cling for dear life to mostly barren trees there remains a bit of life in the old bones, but once the sun goes down, day is done and along with it any reason to do anything more than engage myself in relatively mindless pursuits. It's too late to think after it's gotten dark. Too late to try to make these fingertips try to pour out any but the easiest of thoughts.

And so my mailbox threatens to rupture itself. If you're in there, somewhere, on my back burner, I'm sorry. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. As soon as I feel I can do your response the justice it deserves. Maybe sometime in March or April... Technorati Tags: deesjoe sweetmrs39

4 comments:

Suze said...

Joe

you sound like you could be suffering from SAD. I too feel down when we hit Winter.

It's going to be a very long one now I'm out of work.

So lets snuggle up and keep warm, lets hibernate until Spring. Your mail can wait.

;)

Bud of "Us" said...

Joe,

I'm just going to send those who inquire about my responses to their emails to this particular post in your blog.

I know how you feel.

Bud

Anonymous said...

Just think...in a little over a month, the light will be increasing again. Then we'll get SIX...WHOLE...MONTHS of increasing light.

Ahhhhh...hold on to that good thought.

Biker & Teacher said...

This is that time of year when I feel the laziest. I seem to drag my feet and procrastinate on many fronts. So join us all, Joe, and feel good knowing that whatever you get done, as small as it may seem, is a miracle and bask in that glory and to hell with the other things until you are good and ready to give them your full and undivided attention.

The Teacher