Missing my spark

The observant amongst you may have noticed that I've not blogged much of late.

It's a little strange, I've wanted to write stuff, but when it's come to the crunch I've not been able to think of anything to write about. I could say that it's because nothing exciting has been happening in my life, which would be true, but I've not let that stop me before.

It's more to do with change of mood, and a change in the way my brain's been working.

Normally my mind seems to fill with ideas slowly, like gas filling a badly-ventilated apartment. These ideas float around for a bit, and then something will spark in my mind, and there'll be a huge explosion of creativity, normally in the form of a blog entry.

The ideas are coming, the room is full, the budgie is lying dead in its cage, but no spark. It's most upsetting.

I'm actually quite proud of my mind. I like the way it surprises me. I like the way bits of it seem to go away for days to work on something, and then come back sheepishly and say "we made this". It's like having my own internal R&D department.

I also like the way I can see patterns in things, and find the truth in things by the way they relate to other things. I like having a certain amount of wit to put these things into words.

All this sounds very conceited.

I remember once, a long time ago before I left home, I was having a conversation with my Dad, and he said something very clever and funny. I've completely forgotten what we were talking about, or what it was that my Dad said that was so amazingly witty, we just laughed and I went back to watching telly.

About ten minutes later I looked over to my Dad, who was staring into the middle distance with a big smile on his face.

"What are you thinking about?" I said.

"I was just thinking about how clever I am," he said wistfully, and laughed.

It was such an incredibly immodest thing to say that I laughed too. I laughed because I knew exactly what he meant, that great feeling you get when you know what you've just done or said is clever, and you replay it over in your mind just to savour it's greatness.

That story might not throw any light on why my spark has deserted me, but it might go some way to explain why I blog stuff in the first place.

It's pure vanity, dear Reader. Sometimes you get to see the fruits of my impressive wit, sometimes you have to put up with me staring into the middle distance and thinking just how jolly clever I am.

But I'd rather have my spark back.