Art, Fear, and Twitter
This is a response to my brother's blogpost. It's quite good, and talks about many things I'm also experiencing.
The first thing we share in common is the impulse to write when something in our lives is wrong. In some sense, I think this is healthy, but it also makes me think that, without my misery, I wouldn't write, which is unfortunately borne out by the lack of recent output on this blog. Bugger. Perhaps journaling is the conscious mind's way of combating the unconscious, of bringing the shadow up to the light of language. One would do well not to forget the first rule of fighting games: your opponent is playing, too. As the ego incorporates the id, the id grows in response. Perhaps, then, the aim of writing should be more like Go: not to win, but to play a beautiful game.
And that brings us to art, and the act of not making it. His version of this is being a sound tech, because he's afraid of failing at what he really wants, which is to direct movies. My version is to write scripts for comics, because I'm too afraid to draw them. But, in my genius, I have invented a third layer: starting scripts for comics out of a fear of finishing them. In spite of how it seems on here, I have been writing. The writing is fun! But the finishing? Ohhh, the finishing. Artistic commitment is horrifying, and full of uncertainty. Better to never commit, and let what could be stay profound and wonderful. In ten years, if I've finished all I've started, I'll be a renaissance man. I've got scraps for a play, a short story, some websites, and an idle scene or two for a comedy series. I'd be prolific, I tell myself, if I got off my ass.
As for Twitter addiction? They got me by the balls, the bastards. I tried to quit, then I tried to use it responsibly, then I stopped trying at all. Turned off the For You page, then turned it back on. I hate it, and my relationship with it, but I'll still keep scrolling that garbage!
I've considered getting an old-fashioned dumbphone, to be able to call and text people while I throw this stupid thing in a lake, but nothing quite fits. Do you know who, and how brutally, I would kill to have a qwerty slidephone that works with my provider? I hate the modern telecommunications industry. Maybe we should have never broken up Ma Bell. Maybe we should have never invented Facebook. Maybe Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson should be declared technological dictators-for-life, and also be my gay dads. Maybe this is the year of the Linux desktop.
I don't really know if Twitter really accomplishes anything for me, besides filling time. There are good posts, and good days, on Twitter, but for the most part, it's just loud noise you forget about five minutes later. Today is a mild October day. The trees are all golden and orange, swaying gently in the breeze coming down from the mountains. I'm having a nice cup of coffee outside a cute little cafe, scratching the neck of a dog who wants nothing but love and attention. What part of this would be improved by me reading people's takes on competitive Magic the Gathering? Am I just a pig who loves slop?
It's nothing new to say that the internet sucks these days. It's probably not your fault. It's not mine. But fault isn't important; as long as I have the ability to respond, I have responsibility. The reason I try to make art, and find art, and appreciate art, is because it's the simplest way to make the world a better place. Politics may be more effective, but it's complicated, and difficult, and full of little hidden evils you didn't realize you were signing up for. Let the fools think they steer the world. I will love, live, and write.