Activating my activation

In the closing scene of Martin Scorsese’s The Color Of Money, Paul Newman’s character makes a return to the professional pool tournaments he’d turned his back on.

As “Fast” Eddie Felson launches the cue ball into the pack he declares “I’m back”. Just as Fast Eddie feels that he has unfinished business I’ve decided to continue with this site.

In order to succeed in a certain field, passion is often a requirement. Not in the way that every company’s description mentions their passion (are you really passionate about plumbing?) but a real self-absorbing love, an internal desire to succeed. Pool is something I was once passionate about and, along with art, cycling and music, a field in which no matter how much I tried, how much work I put into it, I would never have the talent to become a success. At least pool was an enjoyable way to misspend my youth: pool and snooker halls always had bars.

As it did for most, Corona caused a major change to my life. Despite the blessings of silent streets and not having to talk to anyone outside, I couldn’t work. I also came down with a nasty case of Covid and really worried that I was going to die as I struggled to breathe. Within the space of a couple of weeks the whole world had changed. It surely couldn’t be too hard to alter my insignificant life for the better so I started two websites.

I had no aspirations of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg. Rather than aiming to create a new Facebook I set my sights low. Something with the popularity of mumsnet would do. With wind in my sails I was excited. For about 2 days. What was I going to fill these sites with? I’m no good at being a source of positivity, encouraging others to do X,Y or Z. I’ll leave that to Youtubers and useless memes. I couldn’t imagine being the founder of an online community either. I wanted to create something special but this wasn’t the kind of special I can do. An encouraging start turned into nothing and the sites are now festering in the fetid alleyways of the internet.

A couple of years later I decided to try not to be as special as I wrongly assumed I could be (despite often being described as being a bit “special” throughout my life). All I had to offer was myself and to hell with trying to be something I’m not.

I found it hard to come up with the homepage’s introductory waffle. What was I offering to a potential reader? I haven’t experienced tragedy, my childhood was happy. I’ve never been a junkie or homeless and I don’t think I’ve murdered more than a couple of people. All I was offering were the musings of a reformed piss-head with depression and concentration problems. I did, however, have a couple of aims even if mumsnet was beyond my talents.

www.activate-deactivation.com was a way of explaining and, in some cases, offering apologies to anyone who has had to put up with me throughout my life. From family members to teachers, from strangers to partners, they now had the chance to understand me better, take pity or become more forgiving of my misdeeds.

Secondly, frustration with my lack of constructive actions was reaching a peak. Becoming 50 didn’t suddenly hurl me into the clutches of a midlife crisis but it did make me sit up and see that my time on this planet was decreasing at an alarming rate.

Top of my bucket list of reasonable goals (winning the Tour de France and headlining Wembley Stadium are on the other bucket list) was to become a published writer. Self-publishing my writing on my own site doesn’t count but it did get me into the habit of writing for an audience. Nobody wants to hear anyone else’s internal monologue so I had to be more considerate when it came to my writing.

It’s beginning to pay off: I’ve recently submitted two articles to different magazines and they will soon be published. On paper for a paying audience! This has been a huge boost to my motivation and I’m feeling the inklings of passion stirring in the loins of my pen hand (I’m not an anatomy expert).

Years of scribbles and notes from over the years are in the process of disentanglement and logical order. I have three books on the go, actually being written and not simply dreams in my cluttered mind. I don’t for a minute imagine that they will ever become bestsellers (to use a cliché, they’ll be far too "Kafkaesque") but the main thing is to finish them and see them on the shelves of a book shop.

I can only be myself and activate-deactivation is an extension of me. You may not enjoy what I write but I can’t pretend to be what I’m not. I may write for a niche audience but that doesn’t matter. If I were to offer a sickly meme-like motto all I would suggest to anyone is to be yourself.

You may not like me but I don’t care. I will continue to pour out my heart until you beg me to stop. Then I'll ignore your pleas.

Like Fast Eddie, I’m back!