So there I was, sitting in my hotel room, minding my own business, when I vomited a little in my mouth at the inanity of the ideas coming out of the television. It doesn't matter which channel. It could have been any of them.
I felt smug and superior for a little bit until I realized--put in the same situation, would I be any better at cohesively and coherently telling a complex story, arguing a multifaceted issue, or exploring a thought that goes deeper than "Obama=socialist=ugh" or "Santorum=gay hater=ugh"?
The fact that I would staunchly defend Obama from (and/or love him for) charges of left-leaning or immediately hate and vilify Santorum because he disagrees with my opinion on an issue means that I, like so many of the collective "you" out there, suffer from a draining lack of creative thought, argument, opinion, and experience and, more importantly, the ability to express that creativity.
Enter the cavalry.
My goal: learn from the best writers of our and other times. Nonfiction style. I know nonfiction is a vast and imprecise term, but I've loaded up on Baldwin and Didion, Montaigne and Emerson, and I'm going to work. These men and women took the complex and made it accessible to anyone with enough patience to read a few pages. It might be my flaming idealism for the written word, but I believe their example contains the germ of what can defeat the defeatism of mainstream sound-bite thought.
The result? Hopefully a better blog, a better person, and a better life.
Who else should I add to my list?
I felt smug and superior for a little bit until I realized--put in the same situation, would I be any better at cohesively and coherently telling a complex story, arguing a multifaceted issue, or exploring a thought that goes deeper than "Obama=socialist=ugh" or "Santorum=gay hater=ugh"?
The fact that I would staunchly defend Obama from (and/or love him for) charges of left-leaning or immediately hate and vilify Santorum because he disagrees with my opinion on an issue means that I, like so many of the collective "you" out there, suffer from a draining lack of creative thought, argument, opinion, and experience and, more importantly, the ability to express that creativity.
Enter the cavalry.
My goal: learn from the best writers of our and other times. Nonfiction style. I know nonfiction is a vast and imprecise term, but I've loaded up on Baldwin and Didion, Montaigne and Emerson, and I'm going to work. These men and women took the complex and made it accessible to anyone with enough patience to read a few pages. It might be my flaming idealism for the written word, but I believe their example contains the germ of what can defeat the defeatism of mainstream sound-bite thought.
The result? Hopefully a better blog, a better person, and a better life.
Who else should I add to my list?
