Dear Oscar,

I wonder if I am suffering from ‘writer’s block’, or if I am just lazy.

You see, even though I know you depend on these letters coming through, that you want to be remembered to the world at large, that there is the danger that you will be lost to history, that your significance will be eclipsed, I still only think of myself and whether I can be bothered to write anything at all – let alone a missive to you!

There is something so very over-indulgent about suffering from any sort of ‘block’; the inappropriate inability to do something that one does want to do, but which one denies oneself in order to whip up some sort of self persecution, contribute to the fear of failure, and just be thoroughly self centred. It is the ‘I cannot be bothered’ that is the most worrying thing, because it is like a self-denial, as if what I might have to say is not worth anything even to myself. Too much time is spent dealing with the realities of a silencing ethos that is culturally and morally generated, without adding to it myself!

And of course I do not take account of the fact that I am very, very lucky to have open to me the means of expression that allow me to say whatever I want to say; although that said, there are strictures in every culture, boundaries that one cannot cross without inviting reproach. I can however express this version of myself, be true to some notion of who I think I am, and make known across this platform my observations, thoughts, commentary. It is certainly not true everywhere. There are places across the globe in this the twenty-first century where certain words and certain phrases will get the author into a lot of bother, where neighbourhoods will erupt in condemnation, where lives are sanctioned, restricted, or even curtailed. I know there are many people across the globe who may be interested to read these letters along with you, Oscar dear, but they are afraid to ‘click the link’, because they would then be revealing something about themselves that their society, their family, their belief-system, would utterly condemn.

That is a real ‘writer’s block’; when one might know what one has to say, but is not allowed to say it.

You skirted issues yourself, Oscar, although there may not have been the vocabulary to address those obsessions of yours that got you caught by public disgrace.

I do not know; but mealy-mouthed and petulant refusals to send these short letters to you seems more to do with an abject sloth than a mental deficiency known as a ‘writer’s block’.

Makes me laugh!

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.