To plod, perchance to stumble

Here’s what I thought would happen: I’d take a month off, stop writing posts or reading more than two blogs, I’d waltz about and forget all about blogging. This extended period of not-blogging would then usher in a renewed spirit of blogging zeal, which is the way these things always work.

Or not, as the case may be.

So life's a shit and then you die. No surprise there, right? I'm back, in other words. Haven't got anything to say yet, but here's G.K. Chesterton (from his Autobiography) talking about hobbies. I think he would have included blogging, if he'd known what it was:

A hobby is not a holiday. It is not merely a
momentary relaxation necessary to the renewal of work; and in this respect it must be sharply distinguished from much that is called sport. A good game is a good thing, but it is not the same thing as a hobby; and many go golfing or shooting grouse because this is a concentrated form of recreation; just as what our contemporaries find in whisky is a concentrated form of what our fathers found diffused in beer. If half a day is to take a man out of himself, or make a new man of him, it is better done by some sharp competitive excitement like sport. But a hobby is not half a day but half a life-time. It would be truer to accuse the hobbyist of living a double life. And hobbies, especially such hobbies as the toy theatre [created by his father, and an important part of Chesterton Junior's childhood], have a character that runs parallel to practical professional effort, and is not merely a reaction from it. It is not merely taking exercise; it is doing work. It is not merely exercising the body instead of the mind, an excellent but now largely a recognised thing. It is exercising the rest of the mind; now an almost neglected thing.