On Being the Top Idle Pulley in the Serpentine Belt of Society
Having failed to write in this particular blog for nearly the whole of a year, I feel now suddenly compelled. Yet I am somehow now at a loss for words. It is probably to do with the white screen looming at me, shouting "Write something pithy! May your profundity shine out of the pixels and strike a mighty blow for culture and literacy!"
Sadly, the white screen is unaware that I am neither pithy nor profound, and am in fact better suited to reading what others write, and muttering to myself, "Yes, quite. Pip-pip!" when I read something profound, and then I post it to Facebook for all to admire.
No one ever admires it. Not, at any rate, the pithy and profound things. Should I take the time and care to write a carefully-constructed status update explaining my views on some subject or other, there follows naught but the sound of Internet crickets. However, should I post a silly photograph of my dog or some off-the-cuff remark, suddenly I find that there are dozens of Arr!s and ones of comments. ONES!
The real kick in the teeth of it all is that the very closest of my friends are a group of creatives---something of a Texas version of the Bloomsbury Group---who write fine things and/or paint fine things and have discussions of the latest literature. Sadly, I find myself a hanger-on here. I know that I am of some use, but I am still not quite integral. I am the top idling pulley on the serpentine belt of society.
This, of course, is not a new phenomenon as I have existed for my whole life bouncing around in the electron shells of whatever social circle in which I happen to exist, but generally not in the nucleus. The one exception, I think, is this Austin Bloomsbury Group; never before in my adult life have I felt an actual sense of belonging, rather than a sense that everyone wants me to go away, but are too polite/cowardly to tell me to my face and for some reason continue to be 'nice' to me until I get a clue.* This mode of social interaction appears to be particularly popular with the local gay womens' softball league. It is also obnoxious and catty.
But I digress.
I did have a point. Ah, it was that it is quite difficult being such fast friends with people who are so very creative whilst being so very, incredibly, thoroughly uncreative. These are people who can get out fifty thousand words in one month EVERY YEAR. They have a story EVERY YEAR.
I have ONE story (which I recognise is a greater than zero amount of stories and so I should STFU and be happy with it because some people have zero stories. But this is my blog post and I shall whinge about it if I like). ONE story EVER. I did write fifty thousand words of it one year, and thirty thousand more this year.
It may even be a good story. I, thus far, have a grand total of three people who claim to want to read it (and I know for sure that one third of those people is not just being polite), and the true triumph, I feel, is that precisely zero of those people are my mother. Yes, I, Ivy Louise Crawford-Jonker, have an audience of three, excluding my mother.
One of those three is my wife.
Nonetheless! I should feel utterly blissed-out and basking in the glory of my audience of three for my alleged story, but instead, I feel rather a great panic that I must now produce something for these three to read and what if it is terrible after all? I am sure that at least one of my plots is full of holes, and realised just hours ago that my descriptions are nigh-nonexistent.
To add to all of this alleged creative angst, I ought really be thinking of Python as I have a final in it on Tuesday and Thursday, and instead I am sitting in Epoch listening to "On the Turning Away" on repeat and whinging about my lack of creativity.
Also, I should never listen to "On the Turning Away" when I am such a mood. It makes me feel like a terrible person and it also makes me silently weep while the dude with the mohawk at the next table asks if I am well, and sniff and say yes, and he looks sceptical, and then I say I am listening to Pink Floyd, and he nods solemnly and goes back to his work.
Perhaps some Alison Krauss instead.
_____________________
*Incidentally, the target of this behaviour can tell when that is the case. It is not subtle, and those who participate in such a manner of culling their societal herds are not being clever.
Sadly, the white screen is unaware that I am neither pithy nor profound, and am in fact better suited to reading what others write, and muttering to myself, "Yes, quite. Pip-pip!" when I read something profound, and then I post it to Facebook for all to admire.
No one ever admires it. Not, at any rate, the pithy and profound things. Should I take the time and care to write a carefully-constructed status update explaining my views on some subject or other, there follows naught but the sound of Internet crickets. However, should I post a silly photograph of my dog or some off-the-cuff remark, suddenly I find that there are dozens of Arr!s and ones of comments. ONES!
The real kick in the teeth of it all is that the very closest of my friends are a group of creatives---something of a Texas version of the Bloomsbury Group---who write fine things and/or paint fine things and have discussions of the latest literature. Sadly, I find myself a hanger-on here. I know that I am of some use, but I am still not quite integral. I am the top idling pulley on the serpentine belt of society.
This, of course, is not a new phenomenon as I have existed for my whole life bouncing around in the electron shells of whatever social circle in which I happen to exist, but generally not in the nucleus. The one exception, I think, is this Austin Bloomsbury Group; never before in my adult life have I felt an actual sense of belonging, rather than a sense that everyone wants me to go away, but are too polite/cowardly to tell me to my face and for some reason continue to be 'nice' to me until I get a clue.* This mode of social interaction appears to be particularly popular with the local gay womens' softball league. It is also obnoxious and catty.
But I digress.
I did have a point. Ah, it was that it is quite difficult being such fast friends with people who are so very creative whilst being so very, incredibly, thoroughly uncreative. These are people who can get out fifty thousand words in one month EVERY YEAR. They have a story EVERY YEAR.
I have ONE story (which I recognise is a greater than zero amount of stories and so I should STFU and be happy with it because some people have zero stories. But this is my blog post and I shall whinge about it if I like). ONE story EVER. I did write fifty thousand words of it one year, and thirty thousand more this year.
It may even be a good story. I, thus far, have a grand total of three people who claim to want to read it (and I know for sure that one third of those people is not just being polite), and the true triumph, I feel, is that precisely zero of those people are my mother. Yes, I, Ivy Louise Crawford-Jonker, have an audience of three, excluding my mother.
One of those three is my wife.
Nonetheless! I should feel utterly blissed-out and basking in the glory of my audience of three for my alleged story, but instead, I feel rather a great panic that I must now produce something for these three to read and what if it is terrible after all? I am sure that at least one of my plots is full of holes, and realised just hours ago that my descriptions are nigh-nonexistent.
To add to all of this alleged creative angst, I ought really be thinking of Python as I have a final in it on Tuesday and Thursday, and instead I am sitting in Epoch listening to "On the Turning Away" on repeat and whinging about my lack of creativity.
Also, I should never listen to "On the Turning Away" when I am such a mood. It makes me feel like a terrible person and it also makes me silently weep while the dude with the mohawk at the next table asks if I am well, and sniff and say yes, and he looks sceptical, and then I say I am listening to Pink Floyd, and he nods solemnly and goes back to his work.
Perhaps some Alison Krauss instead.
_____________________
*Incidentally, the target of this behaviour can tell when that is the case. It is not subtle, and those who participate in such a manner of culling their societal herds are not being clever.
posted by Ivy at 04:58
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