Interlude: How Weeks Turned to Months and Months into An Apology

My dear Friends and Fans (hopefully I have a few fans and YOU are one of them)

There has been a long time between my last blog posting and this. Awfully mighty long time. Shamefully long time.

Why did this happen?  Or more accurately, why did I allow this to happen?

I was planning to just gloss over this gaping space between posts and sound as if  it didn't happen. As if it doesn't matter. But then I thought of many real-life friends (as opposed to cyber buddies and DIGital admirers) that I have lost along the way.. People who didn't make it to my present and future precisely because they sometimes behaved in ways that I felt had to be discussed. Situations where an apology would not just be in order but REQUIRED for the spirit of the friendship to heal. The now forgotten friends acted like the situation didn't happen at all.. or they'd put on that Let's-not-waste-precious-friendship-time-on-it attitude. I judged such "offences" against me very harshly. (I still do!) It's a principle thing for me. A cornerstone principle  if you ask me.

Since I require this high level of thoughtfulness from others in their dealings with me, what then gives me the right to just resume blogging without addressing the fact that I have been AWOL?  Why should I continue as if there hasn't been a quarter of a year between my last post and this? As if that's OK. As if I haven't broken a written promise to remain committed to this open dialogue I have initiated with you..  who have cared enough to spend your precious time on reading my earlier stuff.

When I started pondering this moral issue,  the cliché miniature devil in the cute little red cloak came to perch on my left shoulder like a pirate's parrot and started whispering to my mind's ear... "Nobody really reads your junk anyway so if you still want to continue your fruitless endeavour then just continue without as much as one second's hesitation! Just continue. Nobody will notice that you've broken a promise. Nobody cares about stuff like that anymore."

To balance the equation, a cute little angel flew in and landed like a butterfly on my right shoulder and whispered... "if even there is ONLY ONE READER who just ONE TIME checked for follow-up posts and found nothing then an apology is not just in order but REQUIRED to mend the broken promise." The angel went further to state that even if ZERO readers have been waiting for  follow-up posts, the morally right thing to do is to practice what one expects from others.

Two compelling lines of argument. Each with it's own strong set of inherent merit and logic. Each side passionately argued by a creature on my shoulder.. with my mind caught in the crossfire!

So, which of these creatures won the battle for my mind's ear? The angel, of course! The angel always wins (except when the devil disguises himself as the angel)

I decided that before I continue any other topics I should write about the principle of showing respect by admitting faults even if nobody took offence and my internal dialogue on the principle as it relates to my   blogging sabbatical.

So, my friends, what you have read is a piece OF me..it's a piece written BY me to acknowledge failure. An acknowlegement of a broken promise on my part and an attempt to pick up the pieces and fix what I broke.

Now that we got THAT out of the way.. the follow up question becomes.. "So..Rob! What did you use the free time on? An apology is one thing but an explanation is something else. What's the explanation for your absence? "

My answer to that is a question: Do you want the truth? Do you dare to hear the truth?

 

 
I think Good Ol' Jack said it better in the movie (A Few Good Men) than I will ever be able to. You can't handle the truth! 

The "TRUE" reason I've been absent from my self-imposed blogging duties is that I was kidnapped by aliens. I was taken from earth by  aliens who transported me to their far away home somwhere on one of Jupiter's moons. I was rescued by a commando unit of a  rival alien tribe who freed me and beamed me back to Earth. Now I'm ready to blog again!

Now...Unless you are some messed-up science fiction freak, there's a big chance that you don't believe this.

That explanation is, of course, one huge bag of creepy nonsense. The real truth is much more simple. And it goes a little something like this: I kept postponding what I knew deep down I wanted to be committed to doing. Hours turned to days. Days to weeks. Weeks,  months. End of Story. It's shameful. But it's the truth. One thing I have noticed is that when I strive to be able to HANDLE TELLING THE TRUTH even when it makes me lose face,  the power of truth gives back some of the supposedly lost dignity. 

I hope that is the case here as well. 

I hope you have been entertained.

I hope we all find the inner strength to live up to the promises we make to ourselves. 

Happy New Year.. Whoever you are ..Wherever you are!

And that's my Word!