I've heard a dialogue however, that somehow illustrated why I'm having trouble blogging. It was between the likable loser protagonist of the TV series Californication, Hank Moody, and Radio DJ Henry Rollins. The following is its transcript:
Hank Moody: People seem to be getting dumber and dumber, you know. We have all this amazing technology yet computers have turned into basically 4 figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, to democratize us, but all its really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddy porn. People don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text: No punctuation, no grammar. "LOL" this and "LMFAO" that. It just seems to me that it's a bunch of stupid people pseudo communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more of what the cavemen used to speak than the King's English.
Henry Rollins: Yet you're part of the problem; You're out there blogging with the best of them.
Hank moody: Hence my self-loathing.
(Episode 5, Californication).
1 comment:
That exchange struck a chord with me as well the first time I heard it.
But understand this: Hank Moody strikes me as someone who does things for the shock value of it; so he could write about it or at least run the gamut of human emotions from self-loathing to the crushing feeling in your chest the day you wake up and realise your life has no impact, not because you yourself are insignificant, but because you choose to be through your actions (or lack thereof).
I guess we are to blame for our own inefficiencies and shortcomings; writer's block is just an excuse. It's a way of saying "hey I'm not lazy, it's just my internal filter of bullshit is so high that I could not, in good conscious, put the drivel I currently have bandying about in my skull on paper." Its a way of making non-productiveness look like the result of a sophisticated quality control system.
Bullshit.
That's why I don't get writer's block - I'm just fuggin lazy. :D
Standup, toss your hair back and sashay yourself into the home office and write away. just write. get a tape recorder and talk. the words are in your head; they need only to be put on paper.
Only THEN should the Quality Control system kick in - for now, eliminate your inhibitions!
This has been a public service message paid for by th Committee to Worship Wesam asthe One True Critic in Cairo.
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