I have identified another benefit of blogging. This deals with blogging and avoidance. It may also involve self-discovery and pacification.

After writing the prior post – A Litany of Forgetting – I went in search of an earlier blog post in which I had attempted to apply a metric to determine if my capacity to create text had improved over the course of time.

In my memory I believe I performed an extensive analysis of this topic, devised appropriate metrics, and then examined my written output as measured on a words per day basis between a date in summer 2012 when I wrote my first insurance claim submission (5 pages written in the course of a month) and a later date when I made a second submission to the insurer, or to some other body.

My memory of the results of this analysis was that there had been a slight improvement between the two dates, something like a 10% variation between the first date and the last. What I really wanted to find was a description of the metrics employed so that I could duplicate the analysis. I wanted to compare my present day ability to create text with my abilities in 2012, and with the contrasting date utilized in 2013.

I searched the blog using several different keywords and, while many positive results were returned, I did not locate the post that is recalled by memory. I have four hypotheses for this:

• The post does not exist. I think I performed such an analytic comparison, but the reality is that I am imagining something that I wish that I had done.

• The analysis was performed but was contained in some other document and was not made the subject of a blog post. This is entirely likely. I know I have sought to provide the insurer with some metric that demonstrates the effects of my injury. It is entirely possible that I performed this analysis but then did not use it as the basis for a blog post.

• My search terms were inadequate to the task. This too is likely. Searching on the word “blog” produced a large number of hits, as did “word count.”. I do not remember the other search terms used. All gave a large number of hits.

• The analysis was performed, and was entered in a blog post, but was not made the central topic of that post. In some posts I have added an addendum. a sort of colophon created after having had an opportunity to further contemplate the topic. So the analysis may have been performed, it may be in the blog, but it is buried deep within another topic and I failed to find it. This is highly likely.

As I searched, I was shocked by another set of posts based on a TBI inventory completed in September 2012, and again in September 2013. This inventory was very revealing. The shock was due to the fact that I had completely forgotten about it. Now that I have found it, I remember it chiefly for the great difficulty of coding the rather attractive tables that form the basis of each post. I had to hand code each of these as WordPress does not contain any inherent facility to handle and display tabular material.

A second shock came when I began to collect the URLs so that I might list each page of the analysis in this post. This analysis commenced with an introductory overview of each of the six sections in the inventory. This introduction was then followed by a series of six posts detailing the findings in each section. See if you can spot the problem:

Introducing the September 2012 Inventory
Inventory Analysis Section 2
Inventory Analysis Section 3
Inventory Analysis Section 4
Inventory Analysis Section 5
Inventory Analysis Section 6

If you arrived at the conclusion that there was no analysis of Section 1 then you are absolutely correct. I do not know how I missed this error. I do not know how I missed discovery of the omission. I can understand loosing, or omitting, a paragraph of text contained within the context of a much larger work. I cannot understand the loss of an entire numbered section.

It may sound as if I have documented another failure on my part. I prefer to congratulate myself on my success in generating a new insight.

The insight derives from two events. On the desk before me there sits a stamped addressed envelope which contains the letter that I sought to mail yesterday. The letter is dated May 10th and is going out on May 14th. It was delayed, yes, but the positive news is that I have completed the task.

I paid close attention to completion because the letter was referenced in a blog post. I therefore wished to capture the outcome in a second blog post. This blog operates as a sort of confessional. I declare my sins and seek to repair my faults. The blog is ostensibly public but it has no true public audience and is unlikely ever to gain one. Still, writing to the blog carries a sense of making something public, of speaking to the wider world, of communicating with other members of my species. Since I wish to make a good impression on you, my absent reader, I wanted to communicate the fact of task completion. Left to my own devices, I might overlook and completely forget the task.

You will laugh at this. Maybe. What is not funny is the fact that the letter I intend to send today has been in preparation for almost a month. I think I have the means to verify the elapsed time from conception through to realization. This may form the basis of another post.

The relation between blogging and avoidance also arises in respect to the 2012 TBI survey. This inventory reflects a number of issues I would rather not to acknowledge. This may explain why I ever so conveniently managed to “forget” about it. Avoidance may also explain why I failed to complete the review of Section 1. The benefit of this blog is that it makes it much harder for me to avoid encountering unwelcome facts about myself, my capabilities, and my performance. It doesn’t stop me from doing it. It just makes it more difficult to achieve.

The final benefit of the blog is its possible role in pacification. When I found the 2012 inventory and quickly scanned it, I started to become concerned, or upset. A quick reading suggested little improvement from September 2013. If true, this is a very unpleasant and unwelcome fact. I have come to recognize the onset of depressive episodes (I refer to them as “tailspins”). As soon as I recognized the onset of a tailspin, I engaged in writing the blog. The effect was one of instant pacification. Somehow the act of churning out words, and putting them down on digital paper, has a calming effect. I do not know the reason for this.

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Update 20/05/14
I recently located the incomplete draft of Section 1. It may be found here:
Section 1 Analysis