Getting Serious... Or senile?

Getting Serious or Senile?

I haven't written anything for quite a while now. (No, it's not that I'd been sleeping since the last article!) It's not for the lack of trying, but from the lack of heart. Writing no longer seems magical, as it once did when words flowed freely from pen to paper, in a never-ending (almost to the point of rambling) stream. All kidding aside -- and it is -- I used to love to ramble, words appearing like raindrops upon some meaningless subject as readers searched for shelter from the storm. I used to enjoy joking about my rambling on about worthless points and satirical stands. I rambled on about my rambling on to a point where it became obvious as to what I was doing. After all, the best way to prove you're a goof is to stick your finger up your nose while explaining reasons why you're not. A clown who laughs at himself is always laughing the hardest. So I would be a fool to make believe I haven't had fun. I rest my case.

"One loses so many laughs by not laughing at oneself."  —Sara Jennette Duncan.

But sometimes I feel as though I am the only one laughing, or worse yet, I am the only one who can see past the laughs.

J.J. Proctor once said, "There are things of deadly earnest that can only be safely mentioned under cover of a joke."

You see, normally, right about at this point I would start wandering off my subject and interjecting little points-of-fact in. I would drift off slowly, showing only the subtlest of signs of mischief, hopefully bring the reader to the point of a suppressed laugh. But before I give him a chance to let his air out I send a friendly poke in the ribs, worth maybe a giggle or two. That's about where I let loose with all the tactical obscenities I can pour onto the paper. Hopefully, though, before I let it get too out of hand I bring the whole mass of confusion to an abrupt halt. Then, finally I would drop in a clue or two suggesting I was serious.

It was as simple as that – but it was fun. But no more. I haven't written anything past the first two paragraphs in months. It has become work to try to interject new twists into my articles. The absurdities are either so subtle they're true, or so blunt they expose themselves before they're ripe. I have turned to old joke books for material. I have sunk to watching situation comedies on the tube. I set my alarm clock earlier to catch the morning deejays. I search for off the wall material in men's rooms. I watch U-tube endlessly hoping that I can somehow conjure a way to transfer a hit to the groin to paper. I enter crowded women's restrooms hoping to get into a situation I can write about. Funny, no one seems to notice…

It almost seemed to come back to me there for a minute. A flash lit up in my eye, like old times, momentarily. I felt a glimmer of rejuvenation. But the feeling quickly turned like that of the last few gulps of salt water a drowning man can hold before he sinks to the bottom.

My caffeine buzz faded quickly…

Why? Why did this have to happen? Why has my time been so short? My head's growing dizzy and the words are blurred. From tears fogging my eyes, or from frequent hand spasms? – I know not which.

But what causes the well to dry up? Rome to fall? Why this sudden lack of interest in me? Is the effect of the universal tides, changing the number of neutrinos passing through my brain, or is it because the rain has stopped. Yes, that must be it – the climate changed. As a well gets its water through a cycle that brings it from the various sources that are all eventually dependent on rain, so I am also dependent on my sources. If a well isn't replenished from underground rivers and streams because of a lack of needed rainfall to keep up the continuing cycle, that well runs dry. As this process takes place the deserts creep outwards, slowly expanding the drylands. Maybe something similar is happening to me! Creeping forward in a conquering form of entropy.

"How can you write if you can't cry?" –– Ring Lardner.

 How can you have rivers if it doesn't rain?

So where do I get my ideas? Is my head drying up? Should I use a conditioner the next time I shampoo? I do get the ideas for my articles from my head, but I firmly believe that they originate from experience and outside influences by way of people and places I come across. These experiences are developed and nurtured in my head and changed in ways so that I can make the best use of them.

When the truth is changed how can it become other than lies? But I won't let that get in my way.

What I'm about to say may be a bit hard to follow, but seeing I lack the grace to spit it out clearly, do your best to follow my murky reasoning. If I ever spewed out reasoning that wasn't hard to follow I wouldn't be me. And I got to be me, no matter how unfair that is ...

So bare with me… No, That doesn't mean I want you to take off your clothes!

So let's try to set this straight, using the dry well analogy. The final output (article, paper, book, or blog) is the well, and that is what has stopped or went bad. The rain is my experiences, the people I meet and the situations I witness. It is the raw input of the substance that will be fed, filtered and relayed on to become that final paper, article, blog, or book (the well). My brain is the river or stream which directs the intake of the source and sorts out that raw input (rain) and puts it into the well (article), or, in other words, into readable form.

So quite obviously, something has gone wrong with at least one of these important areas, if not more, which is throwing off the whole system making me unable to write.

But where is the malfunction? Is it my river, ahh… I mean brain, that is giving me trouble? Are my brain cells deteriorating in old age? At what age do cobwebs begin to form in the brain? Hopefully, not before thirty! But I'm not sure what the facts are about brain deterioration. So seeing that I don't have the knowledge, or the facts available at this moment to check out this matter and research it properly, I will just let it go.

That the final output is bad (the well is dry) is the only given, so to figure out this equation we must have access to more variables. But I have already shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it is one of two things causing the bad output, and since above I have shown that it is not my brain that is malfunctioning, so then it must be the rain. Rain is a funny thing …

In short (???), it's you that's messed up. I haven't changed, I know I could still write the same intellectually stimulating and witty articles I wrote before, if the people and world around me continued to be different and exciting, changing from day to day. I need new topics to consume and different angles to approach from. Not the same old political rhetoric, or conspiracy theories.

I need stimulation to be able to shed light on a few mysteries of the universe and at the same time to open up new questions that bring about new mysteries. To have new worlds to explore… new comics to head… new hope… new life ... A new article.

So now as we draw our conclusion that it is, in fact, the rain that has turned sour, that the world is sinking into a boring rut, remember what happens to the river when the rain falls no more. It dries up. So at this very second my brain may have shriveled past a point of return, this will also mean an end to the well – my writing. So if the world goes, I go. And if I go, the articles go.

And that… Is a fate worse than Hell! Or at least close…

Oh sure, the world may pick up again in the future. Like when the rain begins after a long dry spell, rivers start anew to fill the well again. But these will be new rivers, young talent will wash away any traces of the old, and I right along with it, leaving only the fossil remnants behind, to be scrutinized, and worse; to be outdated and forgotten.

So if you want to help out an ageing writer (there still remains the possibility that I am old enough for my brain to be deteriorating all by itself), then make the world more exciting again. Be a positive influence around me. Tell me of new ideas, or better yet-- write to me about them. Include new jokes and subtle puns. You know the type of material I use. You know how I write. Then if you see some closely related ideas to what you wrote in one of my future articles you can gloat (but not tell anyone) over the fact that it was you who supplied some of the basic thoughts that led to the construction of a brilliant article. But if you see an article that appears to be exactly the same as what you wrote to me, word for word, pay it no attention, it will probably be just a coincidence.

Or maybe I could leave my basement once in awhile. So if I do decide to crawl out into the light and you should happen to see me in the street, remember to offer words of encouragement, and speak of new, regenerative, hopes.

By the way, it would help if you stand close and speak clearly while talking to me.

Forever Yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S. If you detect a tendency to ramble in

       the above article, please have mercy,

       I'm getting up in years. If the rambling

     should ever get to a point where you feel  

     a violent act coming on, just skip a few

     sentences and hopefully the action will

    pick up again. Thank you for your patience.