My best friend has commented that I am relatively "private" in my blog and that I don't get personal in it. It was a comment, I have to say, rather than a criticism or, at least, I didn't take it as a criticism.
In self defence I have to say that I am mindful that what I write can impact upon others, no matter how carefully I believe I am disguising them. Other people have a greater capacity to obscure things as required, but I am too unimaginative to successfully protect the innocent and guilty alike!!!! Therefore, the easiest course of action for me is to be very general.
However, if I write solely about myself, then the only person that can be negatively impacted by what I write is myself! This is not because I am insular or that I perceive that the world revolves around me, but rather that by writing only about me, here, I am protecting everyone else! Make sense?
Anyway, this has led me to examine the facts and I have drawn some conclusions and made some commitments to myself - and to YOU, the one of about three people who ever bother to read my blog! :-) If there are more than two or three readers, would you let me know, please, as I often feel like I am comprehensively wasting my time and yours.
You see, since the thoughts originate from within my head, I don’t really need to read the blog in the first place and I sure as damn it is to swearing don’t need to comment on my own poor efforts at writing! If I am the only one reading these then I guess the time I spend on writing in this blog would be best spent in a far more productive and rewarding past time such as …… something that isn’t creative!!!!
The first thing is that I am basically boring. I am actually being quite serious but am in no way being disparaging towards myself. It is merely a statement of fact, as it were!
I am so bloody boring that even I think I am bloody boring!!!
My whole world revolves, necessarily, around what I can see through my front windscreen, what I can see out my side windows and where I have been, as evidenced in my mirrors. It is also bounded by the few customers I see (usually once or twice a day) and the people I come into contact with during the course of plying my trade on the highways and byways of this vast and beautiful land. Other truck drivers can take ownership of their experiences, but to me they are just that and not of interest to anyone bar me!
This does not make for scintillating blog reading! At best it would produce some half baked, uninteresting tome that would be best left from whence it came – in the keyboard (or my head, whichever is the more productive)!!!
Having thought a little further, I reckon I will write one more entry in it and thence make a decision as to whether to let it die a timely death.
Thus we come to the topic of what I should write about …. and …. given that I bore even myself half to death I am certainly at a loss.
I know …. I will use the basis of one of them bloody YouTube “tags” to write a little about myself on here, thus killing 2 birds with the one stone – writing about “personal” things and constructing a blog of sorts!
The tag I have created for myself is to write down five somewhat different things about myself – with a little explanation to fill in a little room!
#1.
I was born in Port Moresby, Papua and New Guinea (as it was known at the time). This was long before Papua New Guinea was granted self determination, self government or had been recognised as a country in its own right. Prior to 1975, Papua was a wholly “owned” Territory of Australia (think of it as an off shore State) and New Guinea was a trust territory, entrusted to Australia by the United Nations soon after World War 2. Thus, although I was born in Papua, I am by birth (and consequently citizenship) an Australian because at the time Papua was part of Australia. I was raised there until I went to boarding school “down South” in NSW.
#2
I grew up multi lingual, speaking Motu, Pidgin (tok pisin), English and a couple of local languages – most of which I have now forgotten. Despite the fact that I “grew up” with several languages, I have no capacity with language. I couldn’t learn French, Italian or Swahila if my life depended upon it!
#3
The bulk of my education was at single gender boarding schools. This has resulted in me being somewhat socially inept and certainly at a loss with dealing with the fairer sex. Come to think of it, though, I am not too sure that any male does much better than I do!!!! I tend to become quite nervous and am painfully aware of my inabilities to relate to females for extended periods. I am also quite shy, but tend to masquerade as somebody with a high degree of self confidence with quite a degree of success!!!!
#4
I love technology and gadgets. I have a couple of hobbies that I pursue as extra-curricular activities after work (and at work, for that matter). These are computers and Ham (or Amateur) Radio. I hold an unrestricted Australian Amateur Radio licence.
#5
I have a fascination with poetry and prose. This is especially strange because as a general rule in my life, I cannot “imagine” or “visualise” just about anything. I can, however, read a story, or a poem, and be transported into the scene. It is just that I suspect that I am transported there in a completely different way to other people. I read aloud to myself and hearing the words allows me to absorb the essence of the story. Without that I actually hear the words, they are just that to me – words on a piece of paper. Strange, huh?
So there are five things about me that most people wouldn’t know, or that are a little unusual. I am a “Mr Average” in that I am average at just about anything I do. I am battling to find anything in my life at which I excel, however most things I put my mind to I can do – just not particularly well. I don’t do anything badly, but I don’t do anything particularly well either! I just do my best, which is often below par for many, but better than some ….. in everything I do.
Thus we get back to the fact that I bore even myself ….. because everything is so bloody average it becomes invisible or transparent to everyone, including myself!
The good news is that I can make a fair fist of just about anything I do. The bad news is that the highest level of achievement I ever attain is simply …. ordinary!!!
The good news is that people become confident in allowing me to do just about anything, but the bad news is that most people would prefer somebody other than me did it, because they would “be a star”, whilst I just get the job done.
I am grateful for small mercies, however, because I have the opportunity to do a much wider range of things in my life than just about anyone I know, so I have a broader outlook or perspective on virtually all aspects of life than most people, so it is “swings and round-abouts”.
As a whole, I can look at myself in the mirror and be proud of the individual in that mirror with the firm knowledge that I have integrity, compassion and abilities that are more than worthwhile. On that basis, I have to say that life is good.
