So that was a long hiatus. But I'm back! My apologies to my legions and legions of fans for being so silent for awhile. Hopefully you will forgive me and trust that I have neglected you for so long because I have been extremely busy. Yes, I know, I'm just a "lazy grad student" but even we get overwhelmed sometimes.
Anyway, in today's episode of "Saying It Better Than I Ever Could", we look to the work of Chuck Klosterman.
Now, I rather enjoy reading Chuck Klosterman, having purchased a number of his books in the last year. He speaks to my weakness for intellectual arguments about (often trivial) pop-culture phenomenon. I must confess, I often don't even know what his point is, but the journey always keeps me engaged. I find myself following along feeling like his argument is important, even if I don't know why*. And I actually mean that as a compliment.
As the beginning of this post suggests, I am not a very prolific writer. Part of the reason for this is that I am busy. Another is captured in the following quote by Klosterman:
"Sometimes writing is like talking to a stranger who's exactly like yourself in every possible way, only (you) realize that this stranger is boring as shit."
- Chuck Klosterman, "Eating the Dinosaur". Scribner, 2009.
I've certainly started and canned a fair share posts. Which is particularly weird considering I have almost no expectation that anyone will actually read what I post. But there is something unsatisfying about posting something to the internet that even I am bored by. It just seems like I'm adding to the clutter.
And I will not stand for that. My standards are higher. At the very least, my fans deserve something like this post: a mediocre piece of work piggy-backing on someone else's talent.
* I am pretty sure Klosterman wrote something in this vein about Radiohead, but I spent the last 40 minutes looking for that quote and came up empty-handed. See, I'm even doing research for these blog posts!
Showing posts with label better than I. Show all posts
Showing posts with label better than I. Show all posts
Monday, October 25, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Saying It Better Than I Ever Could: Malcolm Gladwell on Writing
One of the things I have wanted to do with this blog is to highlight particular moments of clarity by writers, filmakers, artists, scientists, or really anybody who captures an idea/notion/belief that I've had/have, but could never express nearly that well. Today, I turn my attention to Malcolm Gladwell.
Today, I have demonstrated my incredible capacity for procrastination. In order to avoid my work, I have instead done the following: washed the dishes, knee stretches/exercises (which is usually something I procrastinate from and haven't done in months even if I am supposed to do them weekly if not more often), general web surfing, and hey, looky here, a blog post. Any way, in my continuing attempts to avoid "coding" (actually Mizar for those in the know), I picked up a book of essays by Malcolm Gladwell that, let's go with a somewhat obscure reference and call her Lula Mae (at least for now), lent to me. So far, I have only read the preface. In it, Mr. Gladwell drops the following piece of brilliance on us:
"The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. I say trick but what I really mean is challenge, because it's a very hard thing to do. Our instinct as humans, after all, is to assume that most things are not interesting... We filter and rank and judge. We have to. There's just so much out there. But if you want to be a writer, you have to fight that instinct every day. Shampoo doesn't seem interesting? Well, dammit, it must be, and if it isn't, I have to believe that it will ultimately lead me to something that is."
--- Malcolm Gladwell. "What the Dog Saw and other Adventures." Little Brown and Company. 2009.
Gladwell made this remark in a discussion about where his ideas come from. I am obviously not a professional writer, but this is certainly something that I have found has plagued me when trying to come up with ideas for pieces for this blog. When it comes down to it, I don't believe that I am a particularly interesting person. And I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way (well ... maybe slightly). But simply put, I am not James Bond, nor a swash-buckling pirate, nor a jet-setting world-famous explorer. However, this does not mean I cannot write interesting things. Not that I do (or at least, that is up to you), but it is theoretically possible.
I have always aspired to be a better storyteller than I am. Since I am not a professional writer, the opportunities I have to research the lives of others and write about them is limited. But my ability to write about my own experiences is not. The challenge is to take my relatively straightforward existence, and make it interesting to my audience. Discussing the work that I do in a way that is both accessible, and, almost more importantly, exciting to those without the same background as me, is another challenge.
Sometimes I have succeeded in spite of this challenge, but more often I have not. Certainly practice helps in finding ways to make the seemingly unexciting into something interesting. Luckily, I have no shortage of things to procrastinate from.
Today, I have demonstrated my incredible capacity for procrastination. In order to avoid my work, I have instead done the following: washed the dishes, knee stretches/exercises (which is usually something I procrastinate from and haven't done in months even if I am supposed to do them weekly if not more often), general web surfing, and hey, looky here, a blog post. Any way, in my continuing attempts to avoid "coding" (actually Mizar for those in the know), I picked up a book of essays by Malcolm Gladwell that, let's go with a somewhat obscure reference and call her Lula Mae (at least for now), lent to me. So far, I have only read the preface. In it, Mr. Gladwell drops the following piece of brilliance on us:
"The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. I say trick but what I really mean is challenge, because it's a very hard thing to do. Our instinct as humans, after all, is to assume that most things are not interesting... We filter and rank and judge. We have to. There's just so much out there. But if you want to be a writer, you have to fight that instinct every day. Shampoo doesn't seem interesting? Well, dammit, it must be, and if it isn't, I have to believe that it will ultimately lead me to something that is."
--- Malcolm Gladwell. "What the Dog Saw and other Adventures." Little Brown and Company. 2009.
Gladwell made this remark in a discussion about where his ideas come from. I am obviously not a professional writer, but this is certainly something that I have found has plagued me when trying to come up with ideas for pieces for this blog. When it comes down to it, I don't believe that I am a particularly interesting person. And I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way (well ... maybe slightly). But simply put, I am not James Bond, nor a swash-buckling pirate, nor a jet-setting world-famous explorer. However, this does not mean I cannot write interesting things. Not that I do (or at least, that is up to you), but it is theoretically possible.
I have always aspired to be a better storyteller than I am. Since I am not a professional writer, the opportunities I have to research the lives of others and write about them is limited. But my ability to write about my own experiences is not. The challenge is to take my relatively straightforward existence, and make it interesting to my audience. Discussing the work that I do in a way that is both accessible, and, almost more importantly, exciting to those without the same background as me, is another challenge.
Sometimes I have succeeded in spite of this challenge, but more often I have not. Certainly practice helps in finding ways to make the seemingly unexciting into something interesting. Luckily, I have no shortage of things to procrastinate from.
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