I’m going to Buckingham Palace tomorrow.
Not to collect an award from Liz or anything. There’ll be no garden party for me. No suit required.
I’ll be outside the gates in full tourist uniform. Backpack and cagoule. I’ll make some kind of dad comment: “Wouldn’t fancy being their window cleaner!” The kids might strain a laugh out.
But hopefully it’ll be ten minutes of intrigue for my daughters, as I’ve never taken them to see the Palace before.
I’m not sure why we’ve never done it, but, y’know, life gets in the way and all that.
But the kids won’t focus on why it’s taken so long, they’ll just remember the day we went to see Buckingham Palace.
Maybe they’ll think it’s amazing. Maybe they’ll think it’s underwhelming. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter, because hopefully they’ll one day be grateful we bothered to go at all.
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The older I’ve become, the more my inclination to write down the things I think about and learn has diminished.
Sad really. And if I do get as far as writing them down, then it’s highly unlikely they’ll get published.
I mean, why bother? There are loads of clever folks publishing things on the internet every day. (And a sizeable chunk of not so clever ones.)
Is the stuff I write going to add any value whatsoever? Is there anything that I can offer up that hasn’t already been published by somebody more creative, technical, or strategic than me?
Perhaps not. But to those negative thoughts I might have to start saying “Buckingham Palace”.
Buckingham Palace. I didn’t design it, or build it. I don’t own it or live there. I can’t give you the complete history of it. I’ve never been inside, and probably never will.
The same goes for my writing. It’s unlikely to be a brilliant original thought or groundbreaking technical idea. Plenty of people may have written similar things before. Their version may be a whole lot more interesting or comprehensive.
But I must remember to make the effort. Because perhaps my take on it just might be the one that resonates.