The Problem With Apathy

I started this blog for a few specific reasons.  I wanted to be able to vent some rage and maybe get a few thoughts out there into the ether to positively influence the world at large.  But mostly I wanted to give myself a solid reason to write and to write consistently.  I love writing.  Oftentimes I love thinking about writing and musing about writing and starting new projects more than digging in an really creating but none the less I love it.  I love the whole process.  The agony over a single word, the scrutiny over a few line.  Writing, and then rewriting, then rewriting again.  I love the moment you realized you wrote a few hundred pages without realizing it.  Or the odd connection you get when you hit a flow state and words seem to appear, unbeckoned, as if you weren’t putting them paper by the machination of your hands but by conjuring them from another world.

This reason, the true force behind my blog, is why I jump back and forth between sociopolitical rage and light fluffy narrative conjecture.  But sometimes I lose focus of my primary reason.  I find the fun in rage wears off quickly.  People might find the brooding artistic type attractive from afar.  The pensive eyes and disdainfully glances are enticing at first sure but dealing with the sourness that accumulates is poisonous.  I’m not saying you should interrupt the sometimes cathartic anger with bursting into show tunes but a nice smile every once and a while doesn’t hurt.

And so this is my self serving reminder to myself.  But to extend outward to the readers I do have let me explain a few situations intrinsic to that of the writer.  There is often a need for failure among those who write.  There are a few reason for this.  One reason is the written word can very personal and  sense of ownership is attached to the thoughts.  Criticism of something you have slaved over is not always taken well.  Also there is this voyeuristic/exhibitionist side of writing.  There is often a want to hide the creation away from prying eyes and keep it to oneself.  Then there is the exclusion of the writers most favorite and simultaneously least favorite activity: editing.  There is sage advice in asking a writer what their favorite part is and cutting it out.  Embellishment is frivolous – unless, of course you are Charles Dickens and flowery language is not simple allowed but encouraged – and should be excised like a malignancy.  But there is that more immediate sense of failure, the one imposed not by laziness or fear of critique but of fear of success.  It’s odd but the idea of success can be terrifying.  Dreaming about making it big is fantasy and easy whereas actually working towards that goal realistically is daunting.  So often the writer torpedoes themselves.  It’s simply a hobby and they downplay its significance.  Meanwhile the resentment, the feeling of never making it builds and grows power.  It lurks over the shoulder.  It speaks to you as you write.  “If you were any good you’d be famous by now.  No one cares about what you say.  You syntax sucks and you’re funny looking.”  That voice is a jerk and doesn’t know what it’s talking about.  But these are the forces a would be writer must face down.  Essentially the enemy within, which is generally the force we always are at war with.

My other goal once I got a feeling for blogging would be to conquer the online medium as it were.  To create a website with a blog, webcomic, various webisodes, web videos and all manner of content I had a hand in.  I’ve had some starts and stops (mostly stops) with the ideas.  I’ve reestablished some manner of follow through with these ideas.  The inspiration is simple.  I don’t want to be an old man with a lot of regrets.  I’m okay with the majority of the mistakes I’ve made in my life but I don’t want apathy, of laziness or fear to stop me from achieving and experiencing the things I want before it’s too late.

Along those lines I’ve force myself to follow a new idiom: 30 day change.  I want to start down a path and consistently perform and grow over the course of a month.  Be it learning a new language, picking up a musical instrument (and learning it not just the act of hefting it into the air you grammar police jerk you), or in the case training for the warrior dash.  My training revolves around the fact that I never got into jogging and the course is a 5k with obstacles.  I want to be able to make good time and not have a throbbing knee at the end of it.  Last Sunday I took Mac to the reservoir and started easing my way into jogging.  Something I’ve never done before. I have every intention of kicking ass and being significantly better at keeping a good steady pace in a few weeks.

Apathy for me is something I have to remind myself to defeat.  It’s one of those insidious little villains that creeps up out of nowhere and seizes you.  But there is one more flaw endemic not so such to writers but perhaps to those of my age group that I on occasion fall prey to.  The feeling of being owed something.  The universe owes me nothing.  Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I’m owed a good job, a nice salary or anything else.  I think this is something that isn’t always communicated and it certainly fucks up recent college graduates and I see it with a lot of what I like to term fucking brats in adult bodies.  There are plenty of people rapidly approaching thirty who still have crap jobs.  They hold out for the miracle for the school program they will eventually take that will set them on their new course.  Perhaps people forget a job isn’t handed out its struggled for.  I was awful at this in my early twenties.  It took me a long time to get where I am.  A lot of people have gotten lucky and achieved earlier (or worked harder) but I think as of late I’m head of the curve.  I took years of awful jobs to get one I don’t hate that pays somewhere in the neighborhood of not god awful.  I’m still not quite where I want to be but I’m okay with that.  I have plans, realistic plans.  And I think my generation for a large part is missing this rational head firmly planted on their shoulders mentality.  There seems to be disdain for taking a job below you.  As if being unemployed is worse than working fast food.  I’ve work food industry and it’s reasonably awful.  Yet still there are thirty year olds choosing to live at home rather than work their way up.  They yearn for the long shot hoping for someone to fix their problems.  All that time dreaming could be spent building a future.  But its hard work and it’s easier to dream.

But I don’t wish to simply look down from my life of reasonable comfort.  There are plenty of mitigating factors, a pretty common one  being crushing student debt.  Nevertheless I can only hope my generation gets it collective mind right.  We are eventually going to control the world and I hope we don’t fuck it up to much.

Ben