MediocreMan

Blank Mind · 6 December 2025

My mind is a blank today. Just blank.

I do not often have times when my mind is blank. I am not even sure if it is a possibility. For the mind to be blank, that is. After all, here I am writing. So it cannot be completely blank. Still. I just do not have a topic to write about. So I am saying that my mind is blank.

If you even wonder what real writers do when they have blank minds, do not look to me. After all, I am just a poser. A hack with a website. A mediocre man. Well, the MediocreMan. Maybe not the only one, but the only one with MediocreMan.com and a lot of blog posts to his name.

At any rate.

When I have a blank mind, I just write. A stream of consciousness. Just whatever comes to my mind. Which is what is happening now. A stream of words. Maybe not even conscious. Just words. They flow regardless of whether my mind is blank or not. Even though I am asserting that it is. Which is strange in and of itself. Usually, I have something in there. Perhaps it is just old age. Perhaps when you get older, you get blanker. (Is “blanker” a word? I do not think so. Ah well. People often give grace to older folks for saying silly stuff and using fake words.)

But I am not a doddering fool. I am just older than I think I am. Which is an interesting think in and of itself. (Yes, I used think there in that last sentence. I like it better than thing in that case. Or even thought.) But I do wonder if there are thinks and thoughts and musings that people can get away with as they age. I wonder if I am there. Hmm. Maybe in some people’s eyes.

Which reminds me of something dumb I said long ago. I was in my twenties hanging around with some of my brother’s friends. Now, my younger brother is five and a half years younger than me, which made him and his friends in their teens. I do not even know what we were doing. Or maybe we were not even doing anything yet. They were inviting me go do something with them. I replied, “Ah you don’t want to be hanging out with an old man, do you?” They all laughed and called me “old man.” They have called me old man ever since. I do not remember what we ended up doing, but I am sure it was fun. Even for an old man in his twenties.

It is funny how perspective changes. Being five years older than a person when you are in your early twenties is so much different than being five years older than a person when you are in your early sixties. It seemed like I was so much older than my brother and his friends when they were in their teens than it does now that they are in their fifties. Now, we’re all basically in the same stage of life.

Well, I am not getting any younger writing this blog post. It started out as just a blank sheet and a blank mind. (Well, the blank sheet was really a computer screen, which is never blank. Ah well. You get the picture.) Now that I am almost done, I can see that I just rambled on until I got to a short story about my past.

I hope that I have given young writers a little hope. Okay, young is not exactly what I meant. I hope that I have given aspiring or fledgling writers a little hope. Just remember that you can write all the time. Just put pencil to paper or fingers to keyboard. Words will come. Even when your mind is blank.

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Thanksgiving Reflection · 27 November 2025

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday, so I thought I would take time on Thanksgiving to reflect on Thanksgiving. Especially since some people like Thanksgiving and some people do not.

Now, I am not going to get into reasons why people do not like Thanksgiving except to say that some people just do not like the food. Or maybe preparing the food. Which is a valid point. I mean whether or not you like turkey and stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce is beside the point. After all, you do not need to eat what is seen as traditional Thanksgiving food on Thanksgiving. You do not need to eat turkey and stuffing and… Well, you get the picture. You can eat whatever you think ought to be your Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving. No apologies necessary. To anybody.

(By the way, if you think I am giving you permission to eat whatever you want on Thanksgiving or any day, I am not. It is not in my power to grant you that permission. Unless, of course, you think you need somebody to give you permission. In that case, by all means say that the MediocreMan on the internet gave you permission to eat whatever food you want to eat on Thanksgiving. Or any other day for that matter.)

Heavy sigh (Not for the last paragraph, but for the next.)

I know that there are political reasons or even historical reasons for people not liking Thanksgiving, too. People have that right. Of course, they do. But I will not debate those issues. I am not savvy enough to do so for one thing. And who needs to have arguments on Thanksgiving anyway?

Speaking of arguments on Thanksgiving, I think arguments are okay. After all, perhaps we need a little discourse in our lives. The problem is that we do not know how to have civil discourse anymore. We think that name calling and screaming are part and parcel with arguing. We think that reason has nothing to do with life anymore, so we just conjure up assertions and call them facts and say we are having reasonable civil discourse. Actually, I do not know that I have been at a family dinner when that happened. Unless, of course, I was the one who started it all. Sorry about that.

At any rate.

I think when all is said and done, we all ought to just take a day to be thankful. Everybody has at least one thing they can be thankful for, right? Even if it is being thankful that we got to take that previous breath. Or the next one. Breathe in. Breathe out. Aah.

Well, I was going to try and be more positive than this on Thanksgiving. I was going to try and lift up somebody’s spirit. But I do not know that I have done that. What I do know is that I am thankful for life. For my family. For my friends. For my faithful readers (both real and imaginary). And I am thankful that I know the One I am thankful to.

I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving. (Whether you actually like the holiday or not.)

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My New Plan B · 22 November 2025

It seems that I now have a new Plan B when it comes to getting a blog post out when I do not have a blog post ready. I just grab one of my DailyPrompt pieces and voilà! A new blog post is ready.

There are times when I do not have a blog post ready. Imagine that. It is not that I procrastinate. It is usually that I had something come up that was more important than writing my new blog post. Not that my blog is not important. It is. After all, I need to make sure that I get something out for my faithful readers (both real and imaginary). And I need to keep up my streak.

Okay. Keeping up my streak is not important. Not really. I do see it as a measure of my own writing discipline. The longer my streak goes, the more I realize that I am committed to writing. Or at least that is what my mind tries to tell me. Keep going. After all, you never know when you are going to be an overnight success after years and years of working.

Lately, the more important thing keeping me from writing my blog post is editing books. I have a couple that are ready or nearly ready for publication. (After seeing one of them printed, I know I need to fix the cover.) And yes, that is a bit more important than getting my blog out there. For even though my faithful readers (both real and imaginary) are discerning, hopefully, they do not know which blog posts I came up with weeks before publication with many hours of editing and polishing and which ones I came up with moments before my self-imposed deadline. (Which, by the way, is Thursday before it goes live on Saturday. So I can have give a preview to my followers on social media. Hint. Hint.)

Okay. Most of my blog posts do not go through hours of editing and polishing. Most of the current ones are done a week before I post them, then polished and uploaded on the preview Thursday. That is about it. No muss. No fuss. Just write stuff, edit stuff, polish stuff, post stuff. Simple.

But there are some weeks when something messes up my process. Which usually means that there is something that makes me miss my Saturday blog writing session. But that is okay. Because now, I have a backup plan. I do not need to have a piece of filler ready to go (like I used to). I do not need to throw something out there that is more drivelly (is that a word?) than normal. I have a new goto. A new Plan B. I have DailyPrompt.

One of the nice things about writing short pieces for DailyPrompt is that I now have many pieces ready as backups for when I run out of time for posting my blog. I can post a poem that I wrote. Or I can post a piece of fiction that I wrote. Which also hopefully drives traffic to DailyPrompt, where people can read lots of the short pieces that I have written and posted there.

I am glad that I have a new backup system for my blog posts. I am glad that I have written enough short pieces on DailyPrompt that I do not need to worry when I am not able to get a blog post ready in the time that I want. I am glad that I have a new goto. A new Plan B.

By the way, there will be times when I post from my DailyPrompt pieces when it is not because I am going to Plan B (or Plan C as the picture suggests). But I hope my faithful readers (both real and imaginary) cannot tell.

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