Coming in from the cold
Damn you, Russell Brown, damn you to hell and back. Just when I felt comfortable in my apolitical, could-care-less skin.
I’d done my bit. In the days before blogs even existed…. I cared deeply about political issues. I read the manifestos, the books, the pamphlets. I marched. I shouted in front of embassies. I waved placards. I gave money to good causes. I espoused my strongly held opinions to anyone who cared to listen, and a few who didn’t.
Then slowly, as these things do, came work and life and more study and babies. I got worn down. Motherhood exhausted me. (Side note to you young women: don’t have your first baby in your mid-thirties, while working full-time, and in the middle of your Masters thesis. Trust me on this one, just don’t).
So I receded into a silent no-man’s land. Sure, I had opinions. I just didn’t talk about them. Or write about them. If you had read my online journal from that time you would have seen my entries were all personal, never about politics or current affairs. Expressing opinions meant debate, argument, thought, supporting one’s ideas - and all that was just too much for me. Thinking about anything beyond what I absolutely had to think about to get through a day or a week was just more than I could cope with. I shut out everything that didn’t either give me pleasure or require my attention.
At first I felt tremendously guilty about this, but then after awhile I became complacent, and even secretly smug. I hated those personal journals that only waffled on about politics all the time, and I’d read enough of them. They were boring, often badly written, and I usually didn’t care enough about other people’s opinions to wade through their diatribes. At least my journal wasn’t like those, I told myself.
That is the background to my discovery of Public Address, a blog to which I have rather quickly become addicted. I check regularly to see if anything new has been added, except I usually already know because I signed up for the damn notify… I might have to unsubscribe just so I can get that little jolt of excitement when I see something new.
The writing is witty, funny, intelligent. Liberal use of swearing which is always a plus. The range of blogs and topics is impressive, and yes, I’ve read back through a lot of the archives too.
Russell Brown and Co. make me laugh. They make me think. And, best of all, they don’t make me tired! And that is something indeed.
Perhaps it’s time to come in from the cold and start caring again.