So E@L asks me the other night if I'm getting tired of blogging, and I say, truthfully, 'no'. But I am getting tired of the nature of this blog-which is to say I'm getting tired of my own nature.
The sad truth is, I envy Xiaxue and her ilk the ability to blather on endlessly about nothing, just as I envy her staunch readers the ability to find entertainment in posts with so little substance. But the truth is, Xiaxue isn't the disease; she's just one of the more obvious symptoms.
The truth is, most times I disappoint myself. I feel like some schizophrenic clown, a bizarre entertainer tap-dancing through cartoons and sardonic asides, and occasionally stopping the music for a moment to reach for something profound, important—something better, more meaningful. And every so often I manage to touch something approaching truth… and then it's back to the conspiratorial wink, the friendly nudge, the ole soft shoe.
Does anybody know what the hell I'm talking about? Does it matter? Maybe only to me, to the editorial voice at the back of my head that constantly yells 'Clarity! Clarity!'
Maybe the Xiaxues of this world have the right of it. Maybe it's all just about bread and circuses and this week's object of derision. Maybe all this time I've been struggling to break through to the other side of…nothing.
But there are those times, brief, far too far between, like the Wright brothers' glorious thirty-odd seconds at Kittyhawk, where I break free. I soar.
Trouble is, I cannot stomach a few seconds here and there. I am not content to count achievement by the word or paragraph, only to fall back to mediocrity, to serviceability, to – clarity.
I cannot stand the pull of my own gravity.
An adventure is, by nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose. ~G.K. Chesterton
7 comments:
your post brings to mind john mayer's songs.
if you haven't already discovered him, go get his albums now.
for the record, XX is just another marketing tool. her popularity feeds upon itself, and more fools are the idiots who buy into that whole thing. you know how everyone is attracted to fame, whether it's witless or not.
your blogging is what sets you apart from the rest of the drones.
Inspiration and passion are the lifeblood of blogging, I believe; tragedy, pain, also excellent catalyses (sp?)-- no one writes masterpieces all day long, even Hemingway wrote one bad novel, and one's style is like chipping away at driftwood, slow, steady, in time.
Robin Williams asked Will Hunting, "Who inspires you?"
Well, what drives you? What inspires you? What are you passionate about?
And sometimes writing requires diving into a depth that is exhausting and for practical matters, not doable repeatedly, day after day.
What did you say? There's always the delete button?
Jae
writer-block you mean?
when the gravity gets too heavy for you, take a seat. :) or better yet, get on a swing and have some fun with it. embrace it, because it's not a chore but what you stand for.
i don't think you'll know what to do with a bunch of sheep anyway. :)
Maybe Xiaxue's right? You must be smoking crack.
If you managed to somehow produce profundity and literary brilliance in every single post, I honestly think it'd only take away from the aha!-golden-nugget value of your top tier entries (and I'm not being particularly articulate but I know you get my gist, so whatever).
Shakespeare didn't add comic relief between his most intense scenes for nothing, so stop doing blow and take pride in your skill at soft shoe-ing it.
Well that one moment when Wright brothers defied gravity, gave us an age where everyone could. One small leap can certainly change everything forever. :)
Mainey- yeah, i know johnny :)
jae- that's the problem. my inspiration is fractured and flickering.
candy- nah, not the block. it's just that I feel like what i do write about is so disparate, there's no cohesion, no ultimate point. why i feel there must be an ultimate point is still something i'm trying to figure out.
val- you shear sheep! or fleece 'em, whichever.
hi screwy!- no crack in singapore other than plumber's crack :)
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