Blog-vember … post the ninth … tactical error

It takes time to establish new habits. While the brain may exhibit neuro-plasticity, the limbic system takes limited effort and energy to operate, while the pre-cortex or front brain which takes a lot of effort to run and consumes vast amounts of energy. What this means is that while your brain can learn new habits and patterns, the pre-disposition is for old patterns. It is quite literally painful to learn new habits and over-ride old patterns with new ones. It hurts your brain.

Today, I might have made a serious tactical error. I have, as is my established pattern, immediately started on the ‘Friday Fun’ when I got home this afternoon. This is fantastic from a Friday Fun perspective, it is lethal from a blog-every-day perspective.

Now I am hiding from my family, drinking Moscow Mules and trying to think of something, anything that might be remotely interesting to write. Should have written first and muled after.

I peruse the mail, the real mail, not the electronic, kind, searching for ideas.

Notice of annual general meeting

Subscription renewal

DJs bill – holy crap – hide it. Contains evidence of Melbourne extravagances.

Insurance renewal

Company directors approval

DJs catalogue times two

Yep. I got nothing. Except DJ’s discount on new beds and furniture and glassware. Wait a minute … more glassware!

Real mail not e-mail

Really, I got nothing. And then at the very bottom of the pile, a reminder of how hard it is to break habits. The New Yorker magazine. In hard copy. Air-mailed from America. It’s a double issue! It’s from last week. It’s ‘Talk of the Town’ lead is about How the US should re-elect Obama. But it is isn’t written like that. It is written:

The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. We’ve already seen the future that Mitt Romney represents, and it doesn’t work…

… complete with umlaut, as is the editorial style.

This magazine represents old habits. My subscription which I have had for a good many years, is now delivered to me digitally. But I refuse out of some limbic brain response to the receipt of the new copy and liberating it from its plastic wrap. More often than not these days, I don’t make it half-way through. I rely on Twitter and commentators to point out the good bits and I read them, in snatched moments, on-line. I cannot cancel. I’ve tried, and failed.  Mostly because my limbic brain loves the soothing nature of the mail, post, the subscription and also because I am not ready to give up the diaeresis. The editing style reminds me that there are still people who care more about how things read and content that appearance. There are people who are committed to great writing. Now if only I could drag myself completely into the twenty-first century.

Not ready yet. Old patterns win out. For now.