I haven’t been on WordPress for a long time and I’ll tell you why.
To start with, I was ill. Every bone in my body ached and went on aching. And I was tired. I would go to bed at 6.30pm and wake up (after a bad night) at ten o’clock the following morning and …yes… I know what you’re thinking… It wasn’t Covid. I have the test result to prove it. I was like that for eight months, and then I started creeping back into the world.
I started to write again and discovered….that I couldn’t write. My mind was a complete blank. I sat there in front of a pad of paper, with a pen in my hand and I could think of ….nothing..zilch.. zero. After a while I managed to squeeze out a couple of possibilities…. And couldn’t start. I didn’t want to write.
I’ve been writing – poetry- stories- even a film script – since I was ten and now I’m 76. This blankness had never happened to me before. It was quite frightening.
There was something else. When I had a look round the internet I noticed that things had changed – everything was shouty, superficial and, to be honest, deeply boring. Much of the material I came across amounted to two bald men fighting over a comb.
I am feeling better now. I have written half a dozen poems – they are are not good poems but at least they are poems. Maybe I will come back some time in the future… I don’t know.
Thank you for reading
A Terrible Fear of Cheese 
“Two bald men fighting over a comb.” Delicious. I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment of the state of the (writer’s) art. Yes, I blame the net, the computer, and social media. Worst of it, the social media which encourages untalented wannabe writers – “you like mine, and I’ll like yours” almost as bad as those who “like” never having read, having read, not understanding. (Shameless self-promotion, but I want you to know if you should stumble on it, I’ve a piece, part of “What’s Wrong with US” I’ve been working in bits and pieces for over two years. Self-censorship keeps it from maturing, and in fact it might not survive.) I wonder (and hope for) some new “toy” to lure self-aggrandizing writers somewhere else. Though it would be YewToob or Podcasting, baut alas, not yet. Thanks for your thoughts. Do good. Hang in there.
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Thanks for your note.it’s not all the kids fault either. Getting older means getting used to being irrelevant. We’re not actually useful any more. All we can do is shout from the touchline. There’s some truth in that.
Conversely, we are the ones keeping the flame burning. We are the ones who weigh each word. We have finally become self aware – while the kids are still finging out who they are. We know who we are, and swe have learned to accept ourselves.
I hope this makes some sense.
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