Balance and Band Wagons

Yesterday, on this blog, I threatened to open up and discuss stuff that wasn’t writing related. Should I say threatened? Or is promised more accurate? Certainly my intentions are good.

I do find myself fearful, today, though. I do wonder just where to dip my toe... and how.

Should a blog, or any public venture really be a pulpit or, for that matter a confessional? I rather doubt it. 

It is not that I don’t admire people who talk about the personal, who talk about the things that affect their lives, and the lives of other people. People are universally touched and delighted when the right sort of people say the right sort of things about the right sort of subjects, but who and what are they?

Stephen Fry and Ruby Wax talking openly about their depressions might make a difference to people’s perception of mental illness, their own or other people’s, and that has to be a good thing, right?

Well, yes, I guess that it does have to be a good thing.

I am not Stephen Fry, though, and nor am I Ruby Wax, and even if I was one or other of those people my experiences would still be uniquely my own, however universal my appeal. 

I have said many times, in private, that I am sick and tired of celebrities thinking that they become more interesting to us when they decide to expose the true miseries of their existences. If they want to make a difference in kids’ lives, are they really going to do it by claiming in a red-top that they were bullied at school? If they want to make a difference in kids’ lives couldn’t they just volunteer for a couple of hours a week in an inner city primary?

I suppose, in the end, they couldn’t. I suppose, in the end, one of the kids, or, who knows, a teacher, would only have to get his mobile out and twitter a picture and the whole thing would turn into a pap-fest.

I wasn’t bullied at school...  not really... and I certainly didn’t do any bullying. I did spend many happy hours when my daughters were in school reading with special needs kids. It would be rather lovely, I’m sure, to be successful, and I hope that, one day, I will be, but there’s more to life, and I hope I know that. Those kids didn’t care who I was or what I was; they just liked having someone to themselves for ten minutes. 

I can’t say that I blame them.