Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Flexibility and Inspiration

I listened to a reading of this poem by a dystopian science fiction writer who also wrote children’s literature. He wrote a poem that is a primer for the alphabet for small children. It was absolutely adorable. I cannot wait until my daughter is old enough for me to read it to her. I was so inspired by this writer’s artistic flexibility. I write science fiction, frequently dystopian science fiction. But I want to write children’s literature, as well. I want to write the things that inspire children to love with the same virtual pen that I write the portraits of a society potentially gone wrong. I want to have that flexibility. My daughter inspires me toward it.

Inspiration is a beautiful thing.

Everyman

There was a point in the history of Western culture in which it was fashionable for everyone to keep a journal. In our new age of social networking, journaling is, of course, more popular than ever…its just that we want everyone else to see our thoughts, instead of keeping them private. We invite their comments. We want their opinions. We want to challenge their opinions. Thus, nearly everyone I know posts status updates somewhere. They share links to the things that interest them. Whether in the compact form of Twitter, the more creative palette of Tumblr, or the long-form written expression of a blog, we’re all about letting everyone else see our thoughts.

Blogging, of course, has brought about its own debates in the cultural sphere. Specifically, we wonder, are the blogs of anyone who witnesses a specific event and decides to publish the details as they witnessed them to be considered journalism? Most bloggers are not trained journalists, and neither are most social networkers…yet its not an exaggeration to say that we learn news from Twitter more quickly than any formal news media outlet. And, news media outlets are making it much easier to post eye-witness video and accounts to their websites.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily include the so-called “elites.” No direct eye-witness accounts or opinions of Joe Public in the pages of the New Yorker, for example, or the bylines of the Washington Post. Some publications and media hold to a higher standard. They want to be gate-keepers, filtering what goes through their sites to their readers and viewers. Societies have always, and likely will always, have these elites.

Yet, our information age has brought about a new distaste for the elites in favor of the common person. Not only is it easier to find out what someone just like us thinks about a situation, but it is also possible for any of us to publish our own books, record and produce our own albums, shoot our own films, and then to circulate them to a worldwide audience. Albeit a small worldwide audience at first, but…you never know what will go viral tomorrow.

Interesting, isn’t it, how this invention of the Internet has brought about a lack of tolerance for the elite gatekeepers? We are no longer as interested in what the publishing houses and record labels think is worthy music. We want to hear the album made by the guy on the other end of town that just posted his first music video on YouTube, or read the novel self-published by the author we’ve connected with on Twitter.

Yet, we still respect the elite in most areas. When push comes to shove, we trust a news report from the New York Times over a more amateur news blog. We value a degree from an Ivy League institution over an online school. We respect great literature over a print-on-demand novel. There’s value to the excellence brought about by people who have a reputation for doing it the best, yet there’s value to the fact that anyone can do it.

So, where’s the reconciliation of this conundrum? I respect novels published with well-known publishers. I respect authors who self-publish, and, in fact, intend to self-publish some of my own work in the near future. That’s where it hits home for me. Writing, musicianship, acting, film directing, are all difficult crafts that require much work to achieve any level of competency or excellence. Yet, all of these gifts can fall by the wayside, regardless of their level of excellence, because of business decisions based on executive profit or the lowest common denominator of the audience instead of the quality of the art.

Do you read self-published books? Watch independent films? Listen to indie bands? The technology is there for these artists to do excellent work, and the information pipeline is there for them to distribute it as they please, without working in connection with agents or executives. This is an exciting time to be creative. Ironically, I wonder if the so-called “entertainment industry” will implode, or at least be forced to alter drastically, as a result?

And, I wonder if it would be such a bad thing if it did?

Photo Attribution: goXunReviews

Bits and Bytes

Somewhere in the middle of a hectic Monday morning, Karen sent one of those email forwards that are meant to brighten your day. The email was (supposedly) written by an older gentleman who had operated a business for years while content to keep his mobile phone in his golf bag in the garage, who became annoyed with a GPS telling him what to do, and who certainly didn’t comprehend Twitter. It concluded with an emphatic statement that many older people are content with what they still consider to be the advanced technology of cordless telephones and garage door openers, and that those younger and more technologically adept should accept this and move on.

It was a good laugh.

I remember the jokes that used to circulate about how friends and family had difficulty programming their VCRs. I remember thinking that it wasn’t that complicated. I listen to Karen periodically muse to her friends that she can’t keep up with which social network is my current favorite, because I have too many. I pounce on the latest updates on my iPhone, and she shrugs her shoulders and contents herself with what she needs to know. I listen to myself with amusement as I lapse into geek-speak when one of my friends has a technical issue, to which I typically know a solution.

My parents, however, don’t understand the concept of Facebook.

It occurs to me that my generation has, arguably, seen the greatest number of life-altering technological advances of any in human history. Actually, let me qualify that: we’ve seen the greatest number of information-based technological advancements of any in human history. I can trace back with wonder the changes in the way I live my day-to-day life through my 30-ish years on the planet. When I was an undergrad, having a computer in your dorm room was unusual. Most of us walked down to the computer lounge that was in the wing of our dorm, plugged a 3 1/2″ floppy into the drive, and hacked away at our term papers with software that was either nameless or whose name escapes my memory. And we were glad we no longer had to do it on typewriters while slinging whiteout.

By the time I was a junior, I had a pager. My grandmother used to try to leave messages on that number like an answering machine, and couldn’t understand why it didn’t go through. Then I had a huge bag-phone in my car with an antennae mounted on the back glass and was feeling pretty spiffy about 60 free minutes…you get the idea.

Now, my phone literally can manage my entire day. I’ve heard that the average iPhone, in fact, has more processing power that the computers used to generate the special effects for the original Star Wars films.

While I joke with my friends and family about what I perceive as their technological ineptitude, however, I feel concerned for those older than us. I feel concerned because I wonder if there has ever been a time in our history in which our elders have been left behind so quickly…disregarded as though they have no idea about life. I wonder if, in our quasi-arrogant self-assurance of possessing and being intimate with technology that our parents could never have imagined, that we de-value the wisdom about life that our parents and grandparents have.

After fussing with email and weather forecasts and so forth on my iPad Monday morning, I settled into the beginning of the week by looking at my daughter. I watched her sleeping face, and thought about how wonderfully superior a creation she is to any metal and glass device that I hold in my hand. I think about how the wisdom of those who have gone before us is invaluable to how we raise and treat those who come after us. I think about how the core of the human condition hasn’t changed, and about how we endanger ourselves of repeating the mistakes of history because we are so obsessed with our present.

I think about all of the times that I couldn’t be bothered with my elders, and how I’ve lived to regret that choice every time. Every. Single. Time.

Progress is a beautiful thing, when taken as a next step to our humanity, our arts, our culture. Should we attempt to replace those things…to replace our history…with the progress of today and dreams of tomorrow, though…then we’ve torn away parts of our souls. We need to be careful in discarding those pieces of ourselves so flippantly, because I’m not entirely certain that we can get them back when we do.

Should a day come when our technology is no longer with us, we will still be with each other. Humanity can’t be fixed with software upgrades and new apps. Its much deeper in its problems and its beauty.

We need to know what to do with that.

Photo Attribution: brendahallowes

Success and Failure

Author Jennifer Egan discusses her writing process

Tragic Flaws

Do you remember Hamlet’s tragic flaw? He considered everything for so long that he no longer had a concept of right or wrong, and was unable to take action on his thoughts. That is, he thought too much, and didn’t act. Sometimes, I feel very Hamlet-like. Not that I’m plotting revenge for a family wrong…no, nothing quite so melodramatic in my life. Just that I have these great ideas, and then I think about them until they’re almost completely fleshed out, and then I don’t do anything about them.

For example, three years or so ago, I met a visual artist who said he was interested in illustrating a YA fantasy novel, but needed a writer. We had coffee, we brainstormed. He showed me some storyboards of ideas, I wrote the rough drafts of a few chapters. But, YA really isn’t my genre, so I told myself, and my schedule was incredibly busy. Ultimately, we stopped meeting and conversing about the project, and I shelved the chapters I had written as a “dead project,” relegated to the recesses of my hard drive. Eventually, I lost contact with the artist.

Now, I sort of wish that I had pursued the project. Perhaps I could have pulled it off, after all. One never knows.

That happens frequently with writing projects. I have random ideas that I store somewhere in my brain, or that I type out in order to remember. Some are deleted after being re-visited a few months later, and others are kept. And I think about them. And I think about them. And I think about them some more. Very infrequently, however, do I sit down and do any writing. Thus, I’m typically juggling two or three projects when many more show potential.

So, I’m resolved to make the space for more side projects, this year. In addition to the two works-in-progress I’m actively writing and editing, I’ve started one such side project, a non-fiction collection of thoughts that may or may not become anything, but that I’m going to write, in any case. I’m also going to take a shot at a children’s book for which I had an idea a little over a year ago, but that I never touched, because children’s literature really isn’t my genre. Still, I’m going to see how it turns out.

I need to move forward in other areas of life, as well…opportunities that present themselves that I don’t immediately jump on because I spend too much time thinking and not enough time engaging. I’m just getting around to actively pursuing an opportunity that arose nearly two years ago, now…one that I put off for far too long until we eventually had a baby, causing the potential to be pushed even further down the line.

Karen balances me, well, in that she likes to have all of the details before moving on an idea. I have the impulse to just move, but then become completely stagnate if I pause to consider all of the details. I think there has to be a balance, an in-between ground of approaching something wisely while still moving expeditiously. So, striking that balance is a goal for my new year.

The worst-case scenario is that I’ll be talking next year about all of those wild ideas that we tried, instead of thinking about what I wish we had already done.

Photo Attribution: Brian Hillegas