Anyone writing for hobby-related blogs, newsletters, or journals usually has one thing in common: We all have some measure of enthusiasm said hobby. And we try to convey that enthusiasm in our writings. Go Sherlock Holmes! The best among us seem to have an undrainable well of that spirit for Sherlockiana, and their writings give us the beacons that help us find our way back to safe harbor when we drift off course . . . if we’re lucky. Some of us aren’t, and wind up drifting away, never to be seen in the shipping lanes of Sherlockiana ever again.

We’ve seen a lot of “love it or leave it” politics of late, and become very used to ad hominum arguments in place of true logic. It’s too easy to slip into that weak brand of thinking when looking at Sherlockians who wander away from the cause, even when looking at one’s self. If you’re not enjoying Sherlockiana as much as you used to, it can’t be the hobby’s fault . . . it must be some flaw in you, right?

Um, yeah. Sure.

But Sherlockiana was more exciting once. It was. There was a time when Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven Percent Solution stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for forty weeks. There was a day when the bus stops in New York City had big pictures of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes on them. There was a moment when you could buy a ticket for a Walt Disney feature-length cartoon about a mouse who lived in Sherlock Holmes’s apartment. These things don’t happen unless Sherlock Holmes is striking a chord with a lot of people. A lot of people.

And we Sherlockians got really excited about those things. Not, “oh, this will do” excited for some retread bit of Sherlockiana that we remember not only the original of, as well as the second version of,  etc. Really excited! New Sherlockians popped up out of nowhere, and they were excited, too! That hasn’t happened much recently.

And somewhere along the way, with the excitement not charging us up like it used to, with the little tugging and pulling of the other parts of our lives, with all the other distractions the modern age seems to be throwing at us to fill our leisure time . . . well, some Sherlockians become lost to our hobby.

Too often, lost Sherlockians were those who were a whole lot of fun. Those of us who are stubborn and obsessively driven to push on in the pursuit of Sherlock Holmes, even when the pickings are lean, can be a bit dull in our dogged forward motion. And we’re tired . . . that same lack of stimulus that led some to wander off takes its toll on us as well. It wasn’t that the weaker members of the herd died off in our trek through a more barren Sherlock-scape. I strongly suspect they’ve found  a verdant oasis to party at somewhere else, and are just as much fun as they always were back when they were in our little cult. They’re just being fun for some other crowd.

But you know, somewhere inside, they have a little empty spot that used to be filled with Sherlockian energy. It can’t be filled by anything but Sherlockian energy, and it’s waiting there, hollow and ready. And someday, when Sherlock Holmes hits the New York Times bestseller list again, or Hollywood figures Holmes out once more, that little empy spot will start filling up again and the lost Sherlockians will find their way back to us. It’s happened before, and will happen again.

In the meantime, those of us who do remain have to remember what keeps each of us charged as Sherlockians and just keep going like little Energizer bunnies, carrying the torch, and mixing as many metaphors as we have to to keep it all together. We all have our dark weeks as Sherlockians, but they pass. Not quickly enough not to let it into one’s weekly blog, of course, but still they pass.

And on we go . . .

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver