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WORTH FOLLOWING
Friday Aug. 2, 2019
Ideas, good ones, are difficult to come by – which is not say good thoughts aren’t abundant …
Thoughts are everywhere, and while I’m a neophyte in the social media world, it is clear that old media, new media and social media are all bursting with thoughts spewed daily by billions of people at billions of people. Bombardment is endless, worse than being sprayed by a fire hydrant because everyone has a megaphone.
There is so much information mixed with fake and hacked information. A lot of it will appear to end as quickly as it began.
However, thoughts which don’t harbor great ideas perish as fast as yesterday’s news.
Purveyors of each ‘next new thing’ believing that gnat-length attention spans of masses will not be replaced by slightly slower thinking deliberate people who will actually pause, think about an idea before action on it, before spraying/sharing it with so many … just a mouse-click, or hitting SEND. Or resend, or reply or reply to all!
I wish I’d spoken, acted and hit send less swiftly ~ many times!
Being first matters in many things, but being fast or second or even third holds little value. Sometimes being last is best. Sometimes speaking last is valuable. And more often than not, not commenting in any way is best/wisest/rarest of all …
I realize my ‘wanting attention’ stems from my upbringing, particularly those early years where that is what you crave almost as much as air and food and a good poop. If you don’t get it, my experience watching myself and others is that we will go to great lengths of ridiculousness to get it … and while, when we get it, it feels like and looks like approval, it always feels like inadequate misdirected angst.
Writing better now with some intention of getting good at it for nearly twenty years, I learned the empty feeling doesn’t subside very easily. The void isn’t filled easily either. I’ve found that physical touch, someone who listens and someone who cares are my tri-fecta. I am insanely jealous of that combo when I see it in action. While this has not helped me find personal or professional fulfillment, I believe it has made me a better writer. So, knowing that as long as I can hold a pencil or click a keyboard – as long as I live, I can write. I can write more. I can write better.
Like most practitioners of any form of art, imitation is part of the work. To see what works for others, to read and then write, to emulate styles we find enjoyable and effective – and to boldly sometime, believe we are doing something refreshingly original … only to learn we are ‘just like so-and-so’.
My style is storytelling, my raison-d’etre is to learn something to better guide my life and fulfill my sense of purpose to the degree I feel I truly understand it, and to leave some crumbs that leave a trail worth following.
I am a truck. I haul ideas along with me the way cartoon hobos carried their belongings on a stick over their shoulder – I cannot stop. Not like an obsession, but more an unfulfilled quest for meaning and value, to explore the inside of my skull.
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