As a writer and aspiring successful writer, who paid a lot of money for a title that says I am a good writer, I have developed a lot of opinions about writing over the years. As a writer who has entered adulthood at the same time the interweb roared into our collective consciousness, I have seen my claim as 'good writer' and 'aspiring successful writer' taken up by just about anyone with a computer. Anyone who is anyone can write, nowadays and some people are actually leveraging themselves online in a very lucrative and viable way.
(The sidebar is a commentary on how with the advent of blogs, no one is held accountable for their opinions and professed facts, they do not represent any particular public, nor are they required to stay true to a code of conduct, which many journalists adhere to, take pride in, and follow at the very least out of respect for themselves and their jobs, and at the most, out of respect for humanity and the world at large. Of course, there are many publications that have no standards, and individuals do exist for whom morality does not seem to exist, but by and large, the journalist I know have standards and integrity.)
But what I myself have fallen prey to on occasion, and what many self-professed writers also fall prey to, in the blogosphere, is the trappings of ego. People with intelligence taking a topic and commenting on it in such a way that implies that anyone of a different opinion should be ashamed of liking what they like or doing what they do. I think it can be very hard to express opinion without saying something to offend a person of a different belief, IF that person is quick to offense regardless of how a thought is phrased. But it seems as though those of us that like to expound sometimes just enjoy the sound of our own witty little voices. And as we write our scathing commentary, we imagine the reception of said commentary is in the form of delighted laughter and raw admiration. We imagine our audience as applauding our candor and wit. Or, if we take pleasure in a little darkness, we imagine our audience as being shamed into a change of heart. Either way, there is a lot of ego in writing. And the line between loving oneself and lauding oneself is very thin, indeed, I think.
My favorite poet keeps ego out of the equation and his reception at shows is exponentially different than when the other poets perform. I will take this observation to heart in my writing from now on, as a principle. Let's see how I do!
1 comment:
Hi Leslie,
I love this post. I went to a non-profit communicators conference recently where p.r. people were talking about this exact thing. They used to frame their pitches to journalists in terms of the individual. So, say their organization is about getting more pre-schools in the inner city. They would find someone whose having difficulty finding a suitable pre-school in their urban neighborhood.
But, because of our desire to be as witty as possible on-line at anyone's expense, p.r. people are having to find ways to reframe their issues, because stories about individuals elicit such a torrent of hateful commentary directed at the individuals themselves.
I was thinking about this very thing last night. Maybe the internet is just revealing where we're at as a society in terms of individual self-esteem. Behind closed doors and pseudonyms, we can so easily project all of our feelings of inadequacy on to people we don't know and will never meet.
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