Illusions or Delusions

Yes I know I started a hub, I wrote down the title and then had the whole plan worked out. But something strange happened on the way with this hub. It was one of those hubs, well after several false starts, I shelved it. Then as I reflected on my past year on Hub Pages, nearly a hundred hubs under the belt, a string of fans close to 200 Then nothing............

I had hit the wall, my keyboard was a task master, not that charming friend it once was! The keys were heavy to depress, that light friendly gentle stroke was a thing of the past, what now reached the screen slowly, was a drop followed by agonized slow aching drop of letters that after eons then finally created a word, spaces and some more letters another word some punctuation jumble of words and finally a sentence.

Then stood up to make another cup of coffee, anything to delay that moment, finally I again sat down in front of that 40cm x 35cm brushed silver 3.5cm wide frame that housed the VDU on which those valiant attempts to gain my lost flow of words where displayed!

A sip of some coffee, hoping for the phone to ring or a knock on the door, nothing, no distractions at all. That type of quiet, that we writers all yearn for, when the flow of words is faster than your fingers. The time for actually reading those few sentences could not be put off any longer.

It was there the beginnings yes a glimpse of what could be, I dare to admit, even might be a completed Hub. It would require a whole lot more, else the hub would be too short.

Suddenly a the sun come out and the keyboard was illuminated and shone, the touch on the keys seemed lighter, maybe, just maybe the block is lifting.

Yes i felt deluded after so may Hubs, some many comments and so little return from Google program. I was lost and my urge to write was gone.

This was at that time a big drive 30/30 100/100 Hub Challenges and the HubMob titles looked as if the rest of the world were excluded in participation, as thew centered on Northern Hemisphere and the Stateside practices and traditions.

So once again looked back on my activities here on the Hub Pages I last posted a Hub in the beginning of April, yes I admit to going over to the dark side, yes lured away by those bright lights of the big City of the Internet.

It was all innocent, first started surfing for some sort of inspiration, found my long forgotten Facebook profile was still active, so a dallied there, playing those alluring games like Mafia Wars, etc, etc had a Farm sent and received Hearts and imbibed myself silly, even spent hours gamling in Reno. lived the life of Rilley or is it O'Leary.

Sad to say this was just the start and as I continued slipping lower and lower, i was led, enticed and lured to the hard core and the real heavy side of "whats out there".

Parents and those of you need to be over 18, nay even over 21 to read further.

They may contain scenes that sensitive readers might not approve of.

You have been warned!!!

Well I was sent a seemingly innocent invite to join a site in my mailbox

What happens is that while browsing around on facebook groups, you stumble across group the sounds fun, and meets and matches your current mood, so you join it, and scroll through the pages and fid another splinter group within it.

You guessed it, this one is a bit more the type of thing that keeps you from going back and doing some sort of writing. So you spend a bit more time there, trolling other pages and passing a couple of witticisms or cutesy remarks! Hey that was the purpose of being here. In your mind you here Simon and Garfunkel singing away "I Am A Rock", and you realise that that is you, casting yourself away in limbo.

All of a sudden your mailbox is full of requests to join some group or other. There are as many groups out there, as their is listings within Encyclopedia Britannica, so you join a few more, matching your today's choice of underwear! I tell you it is positively mind blowing.

Next you set up your own site, where YOU are the Person, it is your scene, your rules nada nada nada. People join because of all those fans of yours that you have collected, so you send out a mass mailing to get more people to join you.

As time goes by, you feel the need to advertise another site and do the  same thing. Then on a day you look at your 300 incoming mail messages in the early am, and start spending 3 hours going through from site and all the groups within, then the next and the next.

You look at the glittering downloaded prepackaged  hip juggling Hump Day, Thirsty Thursday's TGIF's fanatics that send you the same message 4 or 5 times over and realise you have not received very many real comments or generated actual coherent dialogues.

Yes, then the PC starts a revolt, starts running slowly, virus scan now runs for nearly 2 hours, a day.

Then disaster, Cannot access my Service Provider, frantic call to help dek, find out that my DNS has been altered? Fixed, up and running.

Did a couple of backups of my crucial bits and pieces, Cleaned the system and defragged it, now do a weekly clean up of files and cookies, back up and defrag.

A few days later, I receive a notification that my version of MS Word is not certified, they have somehow detected that I am working on a 2002 version, which is wrong as I was still running on a 1997 version. Could not reload the software as the service packs had rendered my initial installation invalid.

Solution was simple, I downloaded Star Office and have not looked back.

Then one morning come in and power up the trusty beast, to find it limping along and not accessing the internet! "Tragedy" played through my mind.

Onto to my Service Provider who again switched my DNS addresses, dug aroundran a couple of test on his site, calmly informed me that my Internet Explorer Program, was corrupted and I would have to reload it!

Sought advice from a PC Tech,  who told me to bring it in and he would see what he could , R400.00 later a copy Firefox loaded, and again up and running, he also ran a couple of tests and said the PC was left unscathed from a possible invasion.

Well I then shut down a lot of my activities on the other side, and here I am.