The Most Interesting Man in the World -- Chapter Five (Part One)

Chapter V. – In Which Byron Warren Gets Back to Nature, and Barely Back Home.

The twins, Alice Vera Warren and Robert George Warren, eventually outgrew their diapers (as most babies will) and entered that clumsy and no less hectic stage of life called toddlerhood. In fact, they had both reached the ripe age of four (and their brother the riper age of eleven), when their parents had an idea which they had not even been able to have for quite some time. Horatio Warren, the overworked man of business, came home to his wife Leona (the exhausted homemaker and mother of three) one fall evening with that idea, the divulging of which we shall witness. As we enter with the bread-winner, we find the wife half-asleep in an easy chair while the twins play somewhat quietly together with building blocks and Byron Merrill Warren, that most interesting of lads, colors (very neatly and without going outside the lines, mind you) in his superhero coloring book.
“Leona!” stated Mr. Warren very pointedly as he set down his briefcase. “We need a vacation!”
Leona Nora Warren, nee Crabapple, looked askance at her husband as only a very quizzical – nay, doubtful – spouse can do. Mr. Warren batted not an eyelid.
“And I believe we shall do just that!” he continued, as if he had revealed the whole of the matter to his audience.
“And I assume you have been promoted to President of the company?” asked Mrs. Warren very dryly.
“No – what does that have to do with anything?” returned the husband.
“Oh, I don’t know – I was just thinking that if we were going on the first family vacation in recent memory, we might need something to pay for it,” said Mrs. Warren, continuing in her dry manner.
“Ah, but that’s where you haven’t thought it out as thoroughly as I have!” said Mr. Warren with glee. “This vacation won’t cost us much.”
“Well, if you’re planning to drive us all up the road and back, don’t bother – we already went to the grocery store this morning. And that cost us a pretty penny as it was!”
“Leona, listen to me. I’ve already planned it. It’s as good as done. Next weekend we’re going camping at the state park not twenty miles away from here. And, Byron, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve also invited a few other families – the Westminsters, the Caldwells, the Sikeses and the Proudfoots! They’ll be camping with us!”
Byron leapt up at the news, while the twins continued building with their blocks, oblivious to the world of camping.
“Oh boy!” shouted Byron. “Chet and Norbert and Albert are coming too? That’d be swell!” Then his young face fell ever so slightly. “But did you say you invited the Proudfoots? Does that mean Raquel is coming?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t – she’s a member of the Proudfoots, isn’t she?”
“But she’s kind of – I don’t know – she’s a little…annoying,” said Byron.
“Oh, nonsense, you two get along just fine at school from what I hear from Mr. Proudfoot. Besides, Mrs. P and your mother are good friends, and who knows? Maybe Raquel can look after your brother and sister for a while. She might love that!”
Mrs. Warren had also risen at the news, but she had her hands on her hips and a very exasperated look that suggested she did not share her son’s elation.
“You mean to tell me that you’re going to put me out in the wilderness for a weekend and let me get bitten by ticks and mites and who knows what other wild animals? And get all dirty to boot, and make me smell that smoke for hours on end?”
“They have showers, Leona,” explained Mr. Warren. This produced no visible reaction in his wife, except perhaps that her brow was a little more arched than before.
“There’s no debating it!” announced Mr. Warren firmly. “We are all going camping, and we are all going to have fun! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some camping gear to go purchase. Byron, would you like to go with me?”
Byron did indeed accompany his father, and in the days leading up to the big weekend, they put their combined energies into preparing, planning, packing, and pondering the trip and all they expected to do in two days. Before long, it was the fateful Saturday morning. The five families met up at the local gas station to compare notes and then drive off in a caravan of sorts. Mrs. Warren was not nearly as apprehensive as she had been earlier, what with the presence of four fellow mothers to cheer her. The Caldwells had a station wagon, which meant that Byron, Norbert Caldwell, Albert Sikes and Chet Westminster could all fit in the back. They spent the entire trip to the park in earnest conversation about many things. As for Raquel Proudfoot, she traveled in the back seat of the car in front of the Caldwells, and was able to make various and sundry faces at the boys at stop lights. The boys, in all likelihood, never noticed.
It wasn’t long before the group arrived at the park, paid for their stay, found five adjacent campsites, parked, and got out to stretch their legs in the fresh forest air. Mr. Warren was pointing out the tall pine trees to Mr. Westminster as the boys charged out of the station wagon.
“All right! Fishing!” shouted Chet Westminster.
“Hold on – we’ve got to set everything up first!” cautioned Byron.
“Do they have ping-pong tables here?” asked Norbert Caldwell. “I love ping-pong; or maybe a TV – Batman comes on at noon!”
“This is outdoors, son,” said Mr. Caldwell, patting his son on the back as he came up behind him. “They don’t have any of those indoor games. We have to find things to do outside. You’ll see before long.”
Albert Sikes, Byron’s “study buddy”, was trailing along, reading a thick book, which happened to be his history book from school. He was reading half-aloud with his eyes glued to the page when he tripped over a rock. Without taking his eyes from his book, he brushed himself off and walked five more yards into a tree, which did not budge but rather knocked off young Albert’s glasses, which he quickly replaced.
“Hey, there sure are a lot of things in the way out here!” he complained. Then he spied his friends farther off and began to jog toward them. “Hey, wait up! Byron, did you know that George Washington was a soldier before he was president?”
At this point there were campsites to set up, and the families separated to do just that. Mr. Warren enlisted Byron’s help in setting up the tent, which they had bought from the store after much deliberation.
“Okay, son, these rods here go through the loops on the tent, and they stretch the tent out to give it shape; then you stick the rods into the ground, and voila! You have your tent.” Mr. Warren beamed proudly as if the job was as good as done. The two spread the tent out on the ground and began putting the rods into their respective loops. As his father put in the last few rods, Byron fell to looking at the instructions, which Mr. Warren had not heretofore consulted.
“Um, Dad – it says here that the gray rods go through the gray loops and the yellow rods go through the yellow loops.”
“Ummm-hmmm,” mumbled Mr. Warren. “Does it, though?”
“Uh-huh, and you’ve done it the wrong way.”
Mr. Warren sighed and looked up at his son. “What do you mean, I’ve done it the wrong way? The rods all fit in the loops just fine – now, give me your help. We need to lift this tent up and stick those rods in the ground.”
“But it says here,” began Byron.
“Never mind what it says! Now, I’m sure it’s all fine and good how the manufacturer wants you to do it, but I’ve already figured it out! Those things just confuse you. In fact, that’s what they’re meant to do. I do things myself.”
Upon lifting the tent, the pair found that the gray rods, which had been inserted through the yellow loops, were too short; and furthermore, the yellow rods, which had been inserted through the gray loops, were much too long. This did not prevent Mr. Warren from forcing the matter. In fact, he forced it so much that one rod (a yellow one) snapped clean in two. As his father groaned in anger, Byron put his hands on his hips and looked at him knowingly.
“I told you,” he began, but his father did not let him finish.
“Never mind! You can run along now. I’ll get your mother to help me. Leona!”
Byron just put his hands in his pockets and walked toward another campsite; as he did so, he could hear his mother saying something about not bringing any duct tape. He stepped into the Westminster’s campsite to find an interesting scene. Chet and his father were bending over a pile of logs. Mr. Westminster was striking match after match and throwing it at the pile, only to sigh loudly each time there was no perceptible result – which happened to be every time.
“Come on – light!” groaned Mr. Westminster. “Hiya, Byron! Did ya get your site up so soon? Hold these matches, son – I think I know what I forgot. Stay here a moment.”
As Mr. Westminster walked off toward his car, Byron put his arm around his pal.
“Havin’ trouble getting the fire going?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure why,” replied Chet.
“Did you throw any lighter fluid on it?” asked Byron. Chet’s eyes lit up.
“Hey! That must be what Dad’s getting now! I knew we forgot something.”
“Hey, isn’t this a can of lighter fluid?” asked Byron as he picked up a can sitting on a tree stump.
“Sure is! Here, give it to me!” Before Byron knew what to do, Chet Westminster grabbed the can, opened the lid, and sprayed its contents all over the pile of logs.
“That oughtta do it!” he shouted with glee. “Here, let’s light a match. Stand back, Byron!” Chet barely gave him enough time before he struck a match and threw it away from him into the pile, which exploded with a high orange flame.
“Whoa! Neat-o!” beamed Chet as Byron covered his eyes from the sudden heat. “I bet we can throw some pine cones on there to make it really sizzle!” Chet grabbed a handful of assorted matter – included pine cones but not limited to them and including pine needles, dead grass and dirt besides – and threw it onto the fire, which began to crackle loudly and emit thick, strange-colored smoke. Mr. Westminster returned just then to behold the spectacle.
“I thought I left that lighter fluid somewhere – Chet! What in the world are you doing? Here, give me those matches!” Before his son had time to explain anything, Mr. Westminster was poking the fire with a stick and waving the smoke out of his eyes as he yelled to Chet, “Why don’t you and Byron find something else to do? This fire’s too dangerous – let me handle it next time!”
So the two friends walked on to the next site, which happened to belong to the Sikes family. Mr. and Mrs. Sikes were spreading a table cloth on a picnic table and getting some food items out of their car. It didn’t take long for Albert to join Chet and Byron, as follows.
“Hey, Mom, did you know that the Boston Tea Party came before the Declaration of Independence? I know that now, but that was the question I missed on the test yesterday. I think Charlie Barnes missed it too, but he wouldn’t tell me. I think he was embarrassed because he got a 75 and I got a 92. The teacher said I was the best student in her class. How about that, huh? Mom, do you think I’m the best student in her class? I might not be, because Byron got a 98, I think, which is higher than a 92, and…”
“Albert – you can calm down with that stuff,” interjected Mr. Sikes. “Let your mother and I do some setting up for a while. And speaking of Byron, there he is – why don’t you go on a walk on the road or something?”
Albert Sikes closed his history book, tucked it under his arm, and set out toward his two friends, who eagerly beckoned for him to join them as they walked. Together the trio made their next stop at the Caldwells’ campsite. Norbert was sitting on the ground, looking up at the tops of the tall trees. Every now and then he would toss a small rock as high into the air as he could. Simply put, he looked bored.
“Hiya, Norb!” Byron called out. “Come with us – we’re going for a walk!” Norbert hardly needed another invitation, for he sprang up, tossed his last remaining rock aside, and joined his friends on the road.
The last campsite in the group, as the reader will no doubt deduce, was the Proudfoots’. As the four boys approached this site, Byron sped up his pace noticeably, an example not immediately followed by the others.
“Why so fast, Byron?” Norbert inquired. “If ya hafta go to the bathroom, I think it’s in the other direction!”
“Uh, no, I just want to get my exercise – you know, get movin’!” Byron backpedaled quickly up the road as he faced his friends. “Let’s have a race!” Whether it was from the nervous look on his face or from the unconvinced way in which he said this, the other boys did not quite catch on.
“C’mere, Byron! I wanna show you something in my book!” said Albert. “Remember the other day when we were talkin’ about how to spell…”
. Byron barely listened as he continued to backpedal, looking out of the corner of his eye. He spied what seemed to be the source of his anxiety, and it – or shall I say “she” – was running toward him in the form of one Raquel Proudfoot.
“Byron, Byron,” she sang out. “Are you guys going for a walk? I wanna come too! Hold on, let me get my Barbie dolls!”
“Aw, we don’t need any Barbie dolls on our walk!” returned Byron gruffly. “This walk is only for MEN!” The other boys began to guffaw and prepare male chauvinist remarks of their own, but it was quite too late. Raquel Proudfoot had rejoined the group, two slender Barbie dolls clutched in her hands.
“This is Sally, and this is Sandra,” she explained, lifting up each doll as she named them. “We just love going for walks, don’t we? (She addressed this question to her inanimate companions). Where are we going, guys?”
Byron, along with his three friends, just rolled his eyes and groaned. There is nothing more disastrous to the plans of a group of boys than the entrance of a girl, and they knew it. Chet Westminster looked as if he was about to protest, but Byron spoke up before that. He knew it was no use. Raquel would have to come along, and resistance was futile. He knew they couldn’t risk hurting her feelings and getting in trouble with Mr. and Mrs. Proudfoot. Besides, if Raquel saw that they were doing manly things (as young boys will do), she would probably lose interest and go away before long.
“Aw, come on, you can go with us,” sighed Byron. “Maybe we can find a trail around here somewhere.”

Your Sin Has Been Canceled

Every now and then I will watch a reality show on TV. People of my generation might find it absurd when I say that I’ve never once watched “American Idol” and “Survivor”, but it’s true. The reality shows I’ve seen are different, perhaps less popular ones. I may not have seen “Survivor”, but my Dad and I used to like to watch “Survivorman”. I suspect this show, like some other reality shows, was a reality show in the strictest sense of the definition – that is, it was unscripted but very probably never included much that was truly “real”. The point of the show was that the host (Survivorman, of course) deliberately got “lost” in the wilds of some of the world’s most untamed regions and taught his audience how to both survive in and extract themselves from these kinds of situations in the unlikely but still remotely possible event that they suddenly found themselves lost in the Grand Tetons or the Amazon rainforest. Of course, you and I would not have the convenience of having a camera crew tucked away a few miles back who know that we’re lost and can call for help if our staged adventure goes awry.
Just because I’ve never watched an episode (let alone a season) of “American Idol” doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of who wins each year (it’s usually all over the news, which I do keep a close eye on). In fact, if I were to watch an episode of this show, I’d pick the very early ones in which the most awful singers in America take the stage to try to convince the judges and the people of our country that what their ears flatly reject as a musical travesty of the highest magnitude is really worthy of a victory in the contest and some lucrative recording contract. I love comedy, and it rarely comes in a more pure form than that. I’ve also seen bits and pieces of the shows “Wipeout” and “I Survived a Japanese Game Show”, which struck me as so profoundly dumb (in a rather hilarious way) that I had to watch for a moment to see if what I was watching was really being aired on live national television.
I guess the reality shows I watch most often are on the Food Network and HGTV channels of our satellite package. On my own, I don’t think I’d watch these channels much or be very interested in their general subject matter, but my parents and sister watch them very often, which means I often end up watching with them. Just recently we got caught up in a Food Network reality show (“The Next Food Network Star”) in which talented cooks competed with one another to land a new show on the network. My sister likes the show on HGTV called “Design Star”, in which interior designers compete in a similar way to get their own show on that network. Both these shows go on for weeks and have a panel of judges who eliminate one or more contestants each week until, as in all fair contests, there can be only one remaining. At the end of each week’s show, the contestants all gather in front of the judges, who review their performance in the challenges they were assigned. Some make it to the next week with an impressive performance, while others survive by the skin of their teeth to fight another day. Inevitably there will be one or more contestants who simply bombed their chances and who are clearly marked (whether in this week or some future one) for elimination by the all-knowing panel of judges. In the particular case of “Design Star” (which, incidentally, can be a very uncomfortable show for men not interested in interior design to watch, for various reasons that I shall not discuss now), the host tells the unfortunate contestant in a very distinct British accent – “(Insert name here), your show has been canceled” (referring to the show they would have had if they had excelled in all the challenges).
All this is a roundabout and lengthy way to introduce what that phrase, and in a way the general subject of those types of reality shows, brought to my mind just today. The Bible speaks of a reality that we will all have to face someday. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that “It is appointed for man once to die, and after this the judgment”. The difference is that we will not be standing before a panel of judges, but before an audience of One – Almighty God. And we will not be standing with fellow contestants so that our performances may be compared to one another’s – we will be standing alone for consideration on an individual basis. The outcome of the examination will not be a show on a network, or some prize package – it will be a matter of eternal life or eternal death.
The problem is that we would all fail that test. Why? Romans 3:23 informs us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”; and Romans 6:23 further explains that “the wages of sin is death”. We may point to the fact that we tried our hardest to live life in a good way – we helped others, gave to the poor, went to church, worked hard at what we did, loved our family. Maybe we didn’t do some of the things that would get other contestants quickly eliminated – lied and cheated and stole and murdered. The only problem is that these things are not enough. God’s standard for the people He created is holy perfection, the quality He Himself possesses. And any way in which we come up short of that standard is called sin. It doesn’t matter what the severity of the sin is – whether it’s great or little, frequent or seldom. Any type of sin and even one of them is enough to keep us out of God’s presence forever, because God is so holy that He cannot look upon anything that is unholy. Based on these Biblical facts, we would be forced to admit that God, the Righteous Judge, would have to say to each and every one of us – “(Insert name here), your show has been canceled.”
But God does not want this to happen any more than any of us would want it to happen – and He made a way, without cheating or overlooking the facts of our records, for it to not have to happen. He sent His only Son Jesus to this earth to live as one of us. After He lived a perfect life as only He could do, Jesus died on the Cross for us. He took on our sins in His own body, suffering the punishment from God that each one of us should have rightfully taken. In the process, He charged all of our sins to His account and charged His perfect holiness to our account. Three days after He died, God raised Jesus from the dead to prove that He was satisfied with the substitution. Our role is all that remains – we must individually come to God, admitting our guilt as sinners against Him and turning away from that sin and to Jesus, accepting His death on our behalf as the only remedy for our fatal sinful condition. If we call upon the Lord in this way, He promises to hear and to answer us, making us His children and sending us His Holy Spirit to help us to live in a way that pleases God until He calls us home to be with Him in heaven forever. Even though we have sinned before we asked God to save us, and will sin afterward, the fact will remain that Jesus paid the full penalty for our sin and made a way for us to be accepted completely by a holy God.
You see, God has done everything He possibly could to ensure that we will not have to be cast out of His kingdom forever on that day of judgment. There is nothing more He can do to give us a way to escape our just fates. However, if we do not accept the way He has graciously provided, He will have no choice but to tell us, “(Insert name here), your show has been canceled.” We cannot wait until we stand before God – then it will be too late to change our decisions. We must call on the Lord while we still live on the earth. I hope you do just that today if you haven’t already. Then, when you stand before that Judge on that day, He will be able to say to you, “(Insert your name here), your sin has been canceled. Jesus paid it all! Enter into the eternal joy of your Lord.”

The Love of Literature

Throughout my life I have cultivated a love for reading. Of course, I have my parents to thank for starting me on that path – for who else was going to read to me before I could read to myself, or take me to the library once I could? Some of my fondest memories of early childhood have to do with my parents reading to me. My mother would read me (and my sister after me) the well-known “Berenstain Bears” books over and over again – you know, the family that lived “down a sunny dirt road DEEP in Bear Country”. I still remember the pictures and the stories from those books. My dad also read me bedtime stories out of a book that I actually wish I still had. I still remember most of the stories out of that collection – “Rumpelstiltskin”, “The Elephant and the Bad Baby”, “The Selfish Giant”, and “Nail Soup”, just to name four. “Rumpelstiltskin” was one of my favorites, as was “The Emperor and the Nightingale”. The latter story was, as I remember, the last one in the book and also one of the longest. This is why I often requested it – not only because I liked it, but because it would keep me up just a little while longer. On the other hand, I hated this certain story about a giant turnip, because it was simply the shortest in the volume (one page). To this day I’m convinced my dad deliberately picked it when he wanted me in bed and out of his hair in short order.
I have fond memories, in fact, of many books that used to be on my bookshelf when I was little. A number of them are no longer in my possession, but I still have one, “The Indian in the Cupboard”, which was read to me in part by my dad and which I read for myself in full when I was able. I was so inspired by the fanciful story of a young English boy’s toy men coming to life that I was convinced there must be a way for the same thing to happen to me and my little action figures.
Before I could read, I still loved to go to the library (for years we’d usually go every week in combination with the grocery store) and pick out books for others to read to me. But I usually wasn’t content with that, because I would usually look at books by myself and make up stories to go along with the pictures I saw – and it wasn’t just with children’s books. I would also pick big, thick history books full of pictures I liked and went to town making up the stories behind them.
I don’t quite remember the process of learning how to read. However, I do remember when I first realized I was on my way to this invaluable knowledge. I was in kindergarten and was looking at a book about horses with my teacher. I remember reading certain phrases in the book and impressing my teacher. Of course, this gradually opened up new fields of reading, from kids’ books with more pictures than words to short “chapter books” to longer and more complex works.
It was a marked tendency of mine as young reader to pick a subject or type of book and stick with it for quite some time. From a very early age, even before I could read, I was extremely interested in American Indians; I’m sure I looked at each and every book in the library on the subject (provided it had plenty of good pictures), and I became quite the little expert on people like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and tribes like the Sioux and Cheyenne. My relatives also sent me several books about Indians, nearly all of which I still have.
There was a time when I was interested in fine arts, particularly painting. I got many books on the subject and studied the different famous pictures and their famous artists (my favorite was Van Gogh). A little after that, I became interested in baseball, mainly through the encouragement of my grandfather, whose own father was a professional ballplayer. He sent me a lot of interesting baseball books, and of course I borrowed everything the library had on it. I suppose the art fever had not yet left me at the time, because every weekend I enjoyed trying to draw pictures based on various photographs of famous baseball players found in my books.
When I became a more accomplished reader, I enjoyed reading the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. In this unique series of titles, you could literally decide where the story would go. Every page or so, the book gave you the option to go to this or that page if you would like the character to make a certain decision; or to another page if you preferred an alternate course of action. The fun of it was that even if you took the wrong path, you could always start over again and see the outcome of a different series of decisions.
When I was 12 or so, I liked books in series. I read all the “Hardy Boys” detective stories I could find, and there were other series I enjoyed, including one about different hunting dogs. I also liked silly stories I found in the young adult section of the library. But at some point I became interested in the classics. I believe “Oliver Twist” was one of the first classics I read, and Charles Dickens remains my favorite classic author. I also read “Moby Dick” and “War and Peace” before I was really even ready to grasp their complex subject matter, but I still liked delving into big books like those. There were a few drawbacks to that, however. For one thing, the longer the book was, the more often I had to renew them at the library (sometimes even getting close to the renewal limit). And those were also the days in which such books made perfect “book report books” in school – and I hated book reports.
To this day I prefer classic literature to contemporary, though there are many recent works which I have read and which are worth reading. I suppose I just like the complexity, thoroughness, depth, and timeless nature of the classics – something that is not always found in an average contemporary novel. That said, it is always a good idea to spread out your reading over a wide array – fiction, non-fiction, new, old, poetry, drama, mystery, humor, philosophy, history. The categories are as vast as they are numerous.
I don’t read at the rate I used to. I used to lie around all day and do nothing but read, something I have neither the time nor the desire to do now. I used to read so voraciously that I could get stacks of books and begin checking them off on the “Summer Reading Club” list. But then again, those were also the days in which I read lighter material. Now, when I’m not wading through classics, I have required reading for school – which is hardly something you can blaze through in a day or two. Still, I’m often painfully aware that I could do more reading if I tried, and sometimes I try to take steps to change that.
There is so much that could be said about literature and reading. There are few things more valuable to develop from a young age than a love of books. There is an entire rich world of knowledge and inspiration that would be closed to us if we could not read. Worst of all, without reading we wouldn’t be able to plumb the great depths of God’s Word, the Bible, which is the greatest book ever known to man. My life has certainly been made incalculably richer through reading – for instance, beyond the obvious joys and benefits of a book, reading has instilled in me a love for writing and provided examples of how to do it well. The fact that I love to read has helped me excel in school. I hope that if you do not already love to read, you might give it a try and start to see all of the fascinating things awaiting you in the pages of books.

Random Ramblings, Volume II

I am faced with a dilemma. It is already the fifth day of the month, and I have not written a thing; nor does the possibility present itself with any particular strength to my mind that I shall have anything good to write soon. Regular readers will note that in such cases I usually pull out a new installment of “Writer’s Block”. But that card can only be played once a month, and it simply will not do to begin a fresh month with an installment of “Writer’s Block”. That would be akin to Mr. Pickett having waved the white flag before he even began to charge at Gettysburg. We all know that Pickett’s Charge was ill-fated, as would be my attempt to find a solid idea. But there’s no place for early surrenders, no matter what the endeavor.
So that option is off the table, even though last month there was no installment of “Writer’s Block”, leaving me (technically) with the option of using it twice this month (or three times next month if this problem persists). It is happy for both of us that I have found a watertight alternative. I remembered that in May I wrote an article with the main heading “Random Ramblings”; in it I explained that I could not use the “Writer’s Block” excuse because I had written something in each of the couple days before that article (thus making it impossible for anyone to believe that I actually had writer’s block). Although the article I allude to was neither good nor notable (except perhaps for the ceiling tile that fell near me while I was in the act of writing) and does not deserve on its own merit to have a sequel, the title just screams to be used in a multi-volume format. And such shall be the case. I shall use it, and proceed to randomly ramble.
Readers who are gifted with common sense and the ability to cut through baloney like a butcher knife through melted butter will observe that I have merely rearranged deck chairs on the Titanic. They would protest that I have simply switched titles in an attempt to make people think I’m actually doing something different than I would be if “Writer’s Block” had been utilized. In all reality (they go on to explain with their characteristic bluntness), it makes no difference one way or the other – both the Titanic and this article have hit a fatal iceberg and are going down.
But such readers do not account for the possibility that in my random ramblings I may hit upon something salvageable – perhaps a stroke, almost, of genius. Such is not the case with “Writer’s Block”, which works on the assumption that I have a blockage in the creativity pipeline and am writing for the sake of writing. However, when I randomly ramble, I am searching for something that may stick. The outcomes may turn out to be the same, but they are not condemned to this fate from the outset.
And so I ramble. There are different kinds of rambling. You may ramble in audible conversation, like most politicians and some media figures do on a regular basis. Perhaps you may ramble in a traveling sense, in which case you wander aimlessly in an area because you have nothing better to do. I hope that literary rambling, my kind, strikes at the best of both of these worlds. It’s not as annoying as when you can actually hear someone rambling; in this case you can stop reading if you get annoyed. As with the second kind of rambling, you may come across something new and exciting in your travels – which hasn’t happened yet here. Time for a new paragraph.
I have not gotten to the bottom of my extended case of writer’s block. Maybe I have had other things than writing on my mind of late. Perhaps I have had no outside or inside inspiration. The fact remains that I used to be able to fire off several articles a week, whereas now I am stuck with trying to eke out several good articles a month. Maybe I had a glut of ideas when I began writing and have used them all up, in which case I must wait until more ideas percolate properly in my brain through life experiences. Whatever ends up happening, I am almost sure that I shall emerge out of this slump. I just have to come up to the surface every now and then to re-connect with my reading public, even if it’s in the form of a highly mixed-up article like this one. However, I won’t burden that public with any more of my ramblings right now – for unlike a politician, I like to think that I know when to cease and desist. The more I write, the more I realize that I am not going to stumble on a diamond in the rough just today. Another random ramble may prove more fruitful at a later date. As it stands now, I have done one thing useful – I have created a new series which may come in handy again in future situations like this one.