Austentacious

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a sane man in possession of a Jane Austen novel must be want of a knife.

...a pretty decent post-opening. A lame, semi-witty wordplay-y title and everything set up for a frolicking, pretentious, comedically dubious rant just liked I've blogged a thousand times before. Well maybe 50 odd times at most. But still.

The trouble is that's as far as I got. I've been struggling to think of something to post for the last five or six hours. After a meandering walk around the block, some msn whinging, a number of distractastic Facebook stops and four attempted post starts, I still have nothing. This isn't necessarily unusual, procrastination is my middle name, something which me and my parents are still on frosty terms about. But 6 hours is a very long time to procrastinate. The alarm bells that this is more than just my regular *belphegoric laziness are the three empty glasses sitting next me.

Not that they were recently filled with absinthe or anything, blinding alcoholism can wait until I have an ill-fated jab at post-impressionism or am I'm REALLY running out of ideas for a post. No, the glasses were only ever full of water. The worrying part is that I only ever get up to get glasses of water when I really don't want to do something. I've barely tasted water in this room since my vain attempt at studying for exams last year.

(Jarring tense shift.)

For a while... a very long while... I tried to ignore the niggling uncertainty in my gut and think of something to write, a regular post. I thought of a few ideas for future posts that I just couldn't get going with, and even wrote half of a wangsty poem. But then, partly at Crucible Tongs' suggestion (even though I think he intended something completely different), I decided I wanted my little corner of D.I.D to be more cathartic and sincere than my other blog, and that I should write what I'm feeling rather than the fun but kind of stagey tangents I normally go on. That's kind of what a blog is for. I'm feeling slightly uncomfortable about doing this for two reasons:

1)I feel like I'm being self-indulgent and uninteresting. Groundless bitching on the internet like this, especially in a group blog with other people, may be slightly cathartic for me but is just awkward at worst and a boring at best for anyone reading. If I wanted to pour out my feelings... well more drip them out, I've been pretty emotionally bland the last couple of months... I'd have a diary.

2)I'm not very good at it. Without the glorious excess of pretentious prose or jamming my writing with as many unnecessary pop-culture references as Don McClean at a Family Guy convention, my writing feels naked and dull.

I have an inferiority complex about this blog. I don't think I can be anywhere near as witty, profound, whimsical, insightful or sincere as the rest of this awesome group. I know this probably isn't completely justified, but I am really struggling to post at the moment. I felt that any of my normal rants I posted wouldn't be good enough, which is why I'm trying to be honest and writing this mess instead. Even then now it's probably coming across as a feeble attempt and plagiarising much more talented bloggers. I should probably stick with the stuff I know but at the moment though, this is the best I can do.

I guess as much as I love mediums of expression, I don't tend to actually express myself. Both my art and writing can be super-happy-lol-fun, about an issue I care about, or to do with the angsty and marcarbe themes that I have no real familiarity with. It's rarely about myself or things I know. I guess I just don't figure that I'm interesting enough. Sometimes I wonder if arts, literature, science, entertainment, philosophy and all the great personal tragedies and expressions of our time are constructs. Um, damacus, you say, a lot people have thought that, it's fuelled a good chunk of human contemplation and arts and at worst is pretty standard 14 year old emo fair. But not because we're ultimately meaningless, or because of the omnipotent power of a god, or because death is inevitable, or because we're pushed by evolutionary imperative, or because we all share a subconscious, or because we're secretly sexually attracted to our mothers, or because aesthetic is all that there is, or because we all need to be free from bourgeois tyranny, or because the end justifies the means. Maybe we're all just a bunch of creatures with brains too big for our boots who are trying desperately to keep ourselves occupied, and really just want to have some chocolate and then go to sleep. Actually, I'm not even sure if we really want anything. The secret of life is that there is no secret. Life is in it's very nature... normal. I don't know if that's liberating, depressing or just a little bit disappointing. Maybe all three, but I think probably the last one.

I have to go to bed now because my father came blustering out of bed to hollar at me. More on this later, maybe.

Sorry about this, I'll regret it in the morning.

Night.

*Yes, Belphegoric is a made up word.