Reason – able

September 7, 2015 by Colette B 6 Comments

I’ve posted a full text version of my free-writing, slightly extended in the process of creating a page for today’s assignment #1 response. As that’s a long piece of writing and in places off-topic, I’m cutting it down to size, editing and re-writing for a summary post, as a bulleted list to share in the reader.

• I write because I sometimes can. It is one of very few activities I can currently achieve.

• I write because I am enjoying a return to regular writing after several years while experiencing some improvement in cognitive function during ongoing illness. 

• I have taken onboard the Daily Post/Blogging U team’s encouragement to ‘give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft’ and am just getting on with trying to write whenever I can.

• I can achieve a sense of purpose and accomplishment by writing. Without writing I have little or nothing and much lower self-esteem and a large sense of hopelessness.

• It would be lazy to not be doing anything while I can still be doing something! Writing is a good way of distracting from some types of pain and discomfort. It’s impossible with some other types. I count every blessing of capability as and when it occurs.

• Writing via blogging is currently my only ‘hobby’ and ‘leisure activity’, because my functional ability and capacity are so low. However, it is very ‘work-related activity’ focussed rather than leisure pursuit oriented. There are many other things I would prefer to be doing if able.

• I can’t measure such activity and impacts unless I repeatedly try to sustain such efforts. Other activities are currently beyond my capability and level of limitation. Once I can establish a reliable baseline I can try to plan better and see if I can keep reliably to an activity plan, or perhaps judge better how to plan.

• Engaging in whatever learning and practise I can manage might one day contribute toward possibilities of eventual employment / self-employment by at least improving my knowledge, understanding and practical skills if I ever again become employable.

• It’s mostly the only way I have regular contact with the outside world. It’s a great way of connecting with and learning from others and expanding my horizons.

• Like my other blog‘s tagline says ‘Blogging my way back to life somehow’!

• I don’t especially have ambitions to write a book. I’m not keen to add to commercial mass-production and use of material resources adding to stock-piles of unsold books and other goods. I’m quite interested in hand-made books, on-demand publishing and ebooks (self-publishing) but that’s a lot of learning journey away. That would of course also involve having a finished marketable product and lots of energy for self-promotion!

I’ve wanted to keep a journal for ages but it’s not possible. I keep a daybook that I always call ‘my journal’- but there’s nothing much journal-like about it. I learnt the difference between a journal and a day-book during the HWWP2015 MOOC earlier this year. Other than my day-book scrawl and recent blogging activity I don’t write much else.

As my post-title says, I write because it’s reason – able.

(Writing 101-1b)