"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein
My keyboard is cold and the words aren't flowing like they used to. The web page in front of me is a familiar one - homely even - but everything else seems so unfamiliar. It was the Twenty sixth day of August Two thousand and Fourteen (I apologise to those who understand why I've written like that) when I last mustered the motivation, and indeed the confidence, to write a blog post. Now I'm back, I guess the biggest question is this: why? Let me try and answer that question.
Too much has happened over the last five or so months to consign to a single act of blogging, although not enough to claim there's a book to be written. I've therefore decided that instead of clearing my throat with a splurt of dull dear diary drivel, that I'll hit you with the important stuff and try and answer the question set. Exam mode at the ready.
My first year of professional training is going well and, dare I say, I am enjoying a lot of what I do. Having been worked like the academic equivalent of Spartacus for third and fourth year, I've found being forced out into the Colosseum of practical training like being among pussy-cats, rather than lions.
Yes, the work can be hard and there is a lot of it, but I'm finally doing stuff that I can say 'you know, I think I might actually do this in a suit one day'. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the rigour of academia at times, but I'm glad to have finally swapped the musty books for form-filling and drafting. Someone has shown me to the door that leads to my career and I'm tentatively opening it a little more each day with both excitement and curiosity. I am nervous as well but where's the change there? After all, I put the 'Er...' in nervous.
Aside from the 'look at me and my career' stuff, there has been one other big change in my life since I last wrote on here: I made a friend. More specifically, I am in a relationship. I'll give you a moment...
Back on your seat yet? All jokes aside, and without wanting to be too candid about things, I'm happier than I could ever have afforded myself the thought of being. I used to hear people talk about their 'better half' and it always made me wonder what that meant - now I know. She won't want me writing much more than that, but she knows it all anyway and that's what matters. [Quick, how do I get off the stage!?]
Anyway, I've broken the only rule that I set for this blog post about getting to the point of why I'm back writing again - or have I? You see, the two things I've written about are two of the great pillars in my life and it is from both of them that I have found the desire to write again. First, why has my legal training made me want to write again?
I was recently down in London for a week, and visited an exhibition by a guy called Nathan Sawaya. He does all of his art in Lego, which is probably the single coolest way to make a living known to man. Interestingly - or at least it was for me - he used to be a corporate lawyer and he used Lego as a way to relax when he got home from work. That got me thinking about where my creative outlet is, and how I like to relax. Here. This. Now. This blog, and the writing that goes on around it, is where I used to come to let off steam - why I ever left I don't know.
One of Sawaya's pieces was of a man in a suit with another man emerging from within him. This depiction of the inner-self emerging from the lawyer reminded me of what I love to do away from my profession and I think has set me on the 'write' track again - pun-tastic!
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| There's a little red man inside us all. |
That little diversion, coupled with encouragement from my better half (there she is again!) has brought me back behind the wheel of this blog. My engine is just warming up; I feel geared towards writing; it's a good indicator that I feel enthusiastic about writing again; and my jokes are as 'tyred' as they ever were. Welcome back to me.
That Einstein quote still bugging you? I Thought so. I'll tell you why I put it in: with a little bit of tweaking, I think the sentiment of the line can be made a positive one. For example: 'contentment is doing the same thing over and over again, without expecting different results'. When I blog regularly I am content and I know how it makes me feel. Maybe that makes a modicum of sense, or maybe I'm just insane - I'll let you decide.
Thanks for reading,
Martin.
