Recursive Words

While scrolling through recent content at several of the “tent pole” social media walled gardens recently, it struck me just how many people are “in it to win it”. By that, I mean they’re either pushing a service, or endlessly preaching – telling whoever will listen what to do, when to do it, how to do it, why to do it, and so on.

Thankfully when it comes to being talked at or told what to do, I’m the world’s worst listener.

I suppose in many ways I’m a little bit like Nanny McFee – when you want me, I won’t be there – when you need me, I will – and I’m the only one that gets to decide. Wanting me to appreciate your professional marketer/publisher/editor skills that half the universe supposedly relies upon to get them traffic, book deals, fame, fortune, and everything inbetween will largely fall on deaf ears.

Thankfully, I’m not interested in being famous.

I’m here for fun. I’ve always been here for fun. And for my own sanity.

I’ve been writing this blog for well over twenty years. The version of it here at Substack goes all the way back to 2003. There were posts before that too – with a little effort I could probably retrieve them. They’re most likely on ZIP disks, tucked away on the shelf alongside me. I once asked the powers at Substack if they had any plans to implement year and month endpoints like WordPress – so readers could delve into the past – they said no. Substack is about the here and now. I can’t imagine they’re too pleased that I reacted by loading six thousand posts from the distant past into their system.

I did mention that I’m not good at listening, didn’t I.

Earlier this evening I looked once again at the Commodore 64 that I very nearly pre-ordered several weeks ago. It’s a re-creation of an 8 bit home computer from the early 1980s. There’s something strangely appealing about it to me, even though the user experience would be horrendous.

Imagine a writing experience where all the computer can possibly manage to do is plaster 40 characters across the screen, and possibly two or three pages worth of text in it’s memory. Imagine having no internet connection, no other software running, and no easy way of getting files onto and off the machine.

Despite all of the misgivings and a world of negatives, the idea is still somehow appealing to me – and I can’t explain why.

Of course you’re reading a post written by the same guy that has a Windows 3 computer tucked under the desk – with Wordstar and Word Perfect (for DOS) installed on it. If you’re much younger than 50, you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about – and I’m not going to explain, because that would be mansplaining. You can go google it.

I once took part in NaNoWriMo, and wrote my fifty thousand words in two weeks on a second hand Apple iMac – one of the pretty coloured teardrop shaped Macs from the late 1990s. I still have it – it’s in the attic.

Perhaps I should get the Commodore 64 – because if we’re being brutally honest, it’s just a stepping stone – towards a mechanical typewriter.

I’ve always wanted a typewriter.