Wednesday, July 10, 2013

A humble explanation for my absence

I just checked out my space on here - August last year since my last post! A relief to many no doubt, shattering to the two people who used to enjoy it. Perhaps it's all down to my last post on favourite logos - now there's a blogger completely out of ideas - perhaps it was the Last Post for innovative thought.

I don't really care if you care why I've been away. I'm going to fill you in anyway. I'll arrange the reasons in ascending order of importance:

  1. Disillusion - I realised I wasn't the new Messiah. My 'Disciples' group has stubbornly remained at six - and even they are having second thoughts. The Bloggosfear has not proved to be the gathering place for a new religion. However, a couple of recent comments have indicated that there may be a number of closet disciples who have missed my posts. Although they're not registered, I may have even detected a hint of concern among these flesh and blood readers about my health, or even existence. These real life encounters have done nothing to allay their concerns - their personal experience being a pale shadow of the promise in the photo taken about seven years ago (no, I'm not uploading a more contempotary one!).
  2. Madness - I undertook a major landscaping exercise at my home down the beach. 60 tonnes of earth removal and replacement later, plus a stack of paving almost delivered on the concerns of the closet disciples previously mentioned and probably makes retaining the display photo a wise decision. Yes, the project conceived in a moment of madness enforced a subsequent period of sustained leisure, including a break from authoring. I think all will agree that this has proved to be ideal therapy for both author and readers.
  3. Machismo - Some men of a certain age love to prove they still have what it takes. Perhaps that's what drove me to regular kayaking off the Mornington Peninsula. Bizarrely, I kicked the whole obsession off in an inflatable kayak which, in good offshore winds, encouraged me to see more of Port Phillip Bay than initially intended. I remember one instance in which a person sailing a significant sized yacht asked about my well-being as I made a frog-on-the-wall-of-a-slippery-well approach back to shore against a stiff south-easter. I smiled and waved, which he mistakenly took to mean I had things under control. I had what it takes as I left the beach. I had nothing to give on my return. The new, sleeker hard-shell kayak will be delivered this month.
  4. Work - It's been bloody busy. And guess what? I like being busy at work. Nothing more boring that just turning up and collecting the money - although the latter is important to funding previously mentioned activities. A merger, then non-merger, two re-brand projects in one year, two new websites in one year. The sad thing is that only half of last year's work will ever see light of day. Believe me, if you saw what we did, you wouldn't believe me. That's why I'll never show you half of it. The half you do see is bloody unbelievable anyway - in the best possible sense.
  5. Politics - Labor's leadership crisis consumed all the oxygen. KRudd personally tweeted me asking could I lay off the blog for a while so people could focus on his positivism and Julia's incoherence. I would have ignored the request, except that Kev's gazillion Twitter followers threatened to organise a Facebook party at my house if I didn't comply. If only I had realised the hollowness of this threat, coming from 1.5 million names purchased from a Belarus company.
  6. Family - Families just consume lots of things - emotion, time, money. These are all big investments and the fiscal element seems to hold greater sway as your beloved teenage daughter takes to retail therapy, advancing education, school trips and so on. Just lucky blogspot is free, or this might be the last you see of me, dear reader.
  7. Brand experiences - Talking about personal brand experiences is what this blog is supposed to be about but, you know what - I haven't had any great or really bad brand experiences lately. Perhaps everything has just faded to beige. 
So what's resuscitated the Bloggosfear?  Simple. A sick day. Off work with what many females readers will refer to as 'man flu', but which is a real assault on the respiratory tract in this case. Having been constrained to quarters for just 3.5 hours, I now know why I put colleagues at risk for the past few days. There's no upside to staying at home - unless you're really taking what Aussie's refer to as a 'sickie'. In this instance, you're not sick at all and free to indulge in all the world has to offer and therefore not at home.

As she left this morning (not permanently I don't think), my wife said to get to bed and catch up on lost sleep.  But you don't have to take a sick day lying down. In my case, it's inspired me to revisit the blog knowing that, ultimately, what I write will be a cure for insomnia anyway.

Readers can only hope that I am back where I should be tomorrow - in the office and not cluttering the web with unnecessary verbiage. 

I'll be back...