A commentator on this blog called Steve Dean made this observation yesterday, I think in response to my suggestion that I can feel overwhelmed by events:

This won't solve anything, but may allow longevity.

Like Gary Stevenson does….

Take a day, week, or month off now and then.

I feel we are letting you fight our battles, rather than get up ourselves, off our ass, because, well, it is easier.

I am grateful for the concern, quite genuinely. Many comments seem to embrace that sentiment, as do people when I talk to them, sometimes on first acquaintance, who introduce themselves as blog readers. I am always surprised that my writing should induce sentiments like this. It is certainly something that I never expected.

However, whilst this approach might work for Gary Stevenson, I really do not think it would for me.

There is, in fact, some considerable advantage to Gary from not posting too often by taking breaks, because what seems to be increasingly apparent from the content that he does post is that he has just one idea, which is that we need a wealth tax, but little idea as to how to deliver it. As I am aware, reiteration has a value in social media, but doing it too often is most definitely the way to kill an audience. Gary might have got his balance right, but that is not how I think, and that approach will work for me.

My problem is not that I have just one idea, but that I have a multitude of them, and many more than I can ever write about. From the moment of first waking in the morning, quite literally, to just before I turn the light off at night, my brain is almost continually firing, either on ideas that I can generate for myself, or just as often on ideas that result from conversations, most particularly with Jacqueline, my wife. I asked her out after a conversation we had enjoyed by enquiring whether she wished to “continue this conversation over dinner”. Almost three decades on, the conversation is flowing, if anything, faster than ever, and she produces at least as many ideas a day as I do. I just wish I could get her to write them down.

For me, then, the idea of taking a long break is almost impossible to contemplate. Writing down my ideas is the way in which I can test them, develop them, and see if they have any value. Of course, not all of them pass those tests, including some that reach publication, but unless I write them, I cannot clear the space in my head that they occupy, even if doing so simply means that another idea takes their place.

Jacqueline long ago realised that expecting me not to write is as realistic in terms of my life chances as expecting me not to breathe. It is just what I do. It is how I am. It is also what I want to do. Little pleases me more than crafting an idea into a piece that communicates with others, and then giving them the chance to tear it to shreds.

That said, I admit that there are limits on the things I can do. For example, much as I would like to, I simply do not have the time to read all the ideas that people send to me. I am finite, after all. I can also get frustrated with some comments on the blog, and most especially suggestions that would be obviously detrimental to society, and sometimes that shows. In addition, I admit to not being the greatest lover of admin, and email sometimes gets overlooked as a result. And, as Thomas could testify, I can sometimes get frustrated when I cannot get the words to flow as I would wish when we are recording. That inevitably happens on occasion, but he has become a master of making the cuts look as smooth as possible.

Those things can get to me, but taking a break from writing is most definitely not what I need. In fact, that would make my life very much more stressful, and that is the exact opposite of what I need. So, thanks for the concern, but the words will keep on flowing.

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