Literature of the Vapid

If dreams are like movies
then memories are films about ghosts

At the risk of sounding too "wah wah, poor me *sniff* *sniff*", I typed this up last night. I just want to note that I don't consider myself to be all that liberal or "damn the man". If you know me personally, you know I don't tolerate slack-asses and I have no respect for those who just sit on their asses, smoke weed, complain about the world/society, and do nothing (whatsoever) about it.



I’m taking a document processing class online as many of you know. In this class, we have to do a lot of timed writings (which I absolutely hate, by the way) and a lot of typing out of “office” documents. While I was plugging away in the usual fashion tonight, I noticed a disturbing trend. Of course I’ve noticed it before, but it had never gotten to me as much as it did tonight.

It’s absolutely horrible to type words like “effective” and “procedure” and “analyzing” and “productive” and “benefit” over and over again. You just want to yell at the copy, “TRY SOME DIFFERENT FRIGGIN’ WORDS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!”

I got to thinking about business English and newspaper English and “teacher” English and the dreadful entity that is Word Grammar Check. I realized that these vapid, irritatingly PC uses of English are becoming the norm. Why? Because the beauty of the written word has been replaced by the easiest way to write and understand the written word. Long, heart-felt, beautifully penned letters have been replaced by staccato e-mails. Thought-provoking stories have been replaced by flash fiction. What happened, English speakers?

Granted, I do it too – I send those choppy e-mails and have made attempts (poor ones) at flash fiction. It all comes down to time. Nobody has the time to spend on eloquent turns of phrase. Even those of us who really WANT to spend the time aren’t able to because we have become obsolete. We’re forced to work at jobs we hate and to move with the folks in the fast lane – because it’s the only way to survive these days. We know we could do so much more with this time spent keeping up, but we never seem to get it, so we end up just like everyone else. Is this the reason for a recent lack of true classics?

How many would-be novelists, painters, musicians, playwrights, dancers and actors are too busy keeping their heads above water to work on their true calling? How many creative children aren’t allowed to create in favor of classes that only help them pass standardized tests (and don’t truly teach them anything)?

I don’t have a solution to offer on this subject. All I know is that I don’t mind staying up until 2 a.m. and being a little late for work for the sake of my art. And I know that it disturbs me that I’m forced to do that.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in hard work or that I’m lazy. I do believe in hard work – very much so. And I’m only lazy when I feel the strain of all this “keeping up.” I just feel like a lot of folks would be better off (and the world would be better off) if our society had a little more respect for those of us of the right-brained persuasion.


"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" Probably the best Counting Crows song post-August and Everything After