Dear Pogue,

I like to write to you and other people. It allows me to give expression to my thoughts and to create something, something that occasionally, I hope, has meaning. I can explore ideas, coming at them from different directions. More than that, I can look towards the consequence of ideas, explore how you may understand them and find the most meaningful way to give expression to them so as to present you with something that has value. Often I will write a thing then reread it only to alter it or expand it or even delete it.

With writing I can just start, not always having a fully formed idea, and walk my thoughts down a path of discovery. It always thrills me how things form and come together. Ideas blossom and I gradually form opinions, see solutions, touch on understanding that previously was not there. I enjoy myself.

However I do not feel the same ease when talking with people and I can only think it’s because conversation does not offer the opportunity to go back and edit, rewrite or delete prior to presentation. So things come out, not so much wrong, but rather like a wine that hasn’t matured. Harsh, without all the possible flavour and texture. I can be brash or tactless. I don’t think particularly quickly in conversation, or is it that I don’t frame my thoughts in the best possible way? Often I will go away thinking I should have said this or I should have framed my comments in another way. Ideas come to me after a dialogue is finished, normally the best ideas, and they go wasted. Maybe I should start another blog and call it The best thoughts come when I finish speaking! Unlike the things I say in conversation these ideas are not monotone but aspire to be full of colour and occasionally 3D.

Please don’t get me wrong, there are times I can sit late into the evening conversing but it is a limited group of people that I can do this with. The sort of people who can fill the gaps and colour between the lines. Those who will just say “I know what you mean” and I know, despite the poverty of what I have said they get it and a thought, an idea, has passed between us. I love those people because I can be myself around them and not worry about what they may think I said or where I’m coming from. Sometimes my thoughts are just too abstract to put into words and need to be explored and mapped before ever they are set free. Conversation doesn’t allow that unless it’s with someone who really, really understands me. Someone as weird as me!

So I’ll write and that will be my art and my channel to creativity. That will be my expression and my truest declaration. It will also be my safety net. There are some people who I now exchange emails with because, you let our letters get lose in the world and these people, lost souls that they must be, decided corresponding with me was a good idea. Early mornings I sit and ponder an email in response wanting to invest it with as much honesty as I can and as much personality as it will hold. They may see the most authentic version of myself because of this. I can take time to express my thougths and ensure any questions asked are well balanced. In correspondence we can not interrupt each other whilst we speak and will not lose a chain of thoughts. Having never met these people I find myself liking them and would even go as far as saying there are one or two who’s correspondence I look forward to with the opportunity to challenge myself to make a meaningful and interesting response. To create.

So, thank you for firstly encouraging me to write these letters and secondly for perservering with them. I hope there is occsionally something that makes you think and ponder or better still, smile.

Yours, looking for an envelope,

Wic.