new blog post - the venn diagram of where you're from and who you are

[Certain]

Vintage dull boy.

@evil big baby, never get old and tired and grumpy like dull boy.

[oats]

I agree that if the motivation is simply the ego stroke, attention seeking OMG U SO SMART, then it's hollow and unhealthy, feeding into the cultural narcissism I think you're referring to. That's why I write daily for my personal life. Nobody else reads it, though admittedly I have fantasized about a grandson of mine going through my journals after I'm dead and putting the pieces together. Anyway.

The point of writing, or art in general, to me is to experience a shared humanity. All of us have distinct lives in the specifics, which makes us unique, but I truly believe in certain universal feelings, thoughts, etc. If I'm thinking this shit, surely SOMEONE else has to as well. And once you pinpoint the commonalities, you explore the crevasses that make people different. It's ultimately curiosity that compels me, if I'm being honest.

But certain said it best - masturbation is good for you.

[big baby]

tbh it's just how things are said lol. ill boy gets praised for his honesty but says it with a pat on your back and a smile, as morose as it is. I say the same thing but I call you a FUCKA idiyote and I'm psycho, evil possesses sheep dick riding baby faggot. it's laughable, I get why Dallie is the way he is lol. he actually gets more praise this way. the masturbation he speaks of. idc honestly. I know I'm better. it's just laughable. I enjoy both spectrums tho

[oats]

I @'d you bb. I always want to hear your thoughts, scattered as they may be at times.

[Split]

Originally Posted by dull boy

It's nothing. I said something that had little to do with your piece directly and was more about how we write to masturbate and I called your writing masturbation, which was overly harsh, and by saying that I don't mean you're too pussy to handle it, but that it was just more crass than I wanted to project. I'm laying in bed thinking about how nearly all new literature or anything we see really was generally made with a purpose of consumption. We have thoughts and ideas, which are best at inception, and only muddled by our attempts to feed them to others. I think maybe our packaging of ideas and thoughts take away from personal revelations that could build ourselves into better ideas of ourselves for those we directly impact. Our maybe that's just me and I'm projecting. I hate how the internet used to be a world that existed at a desk in a corner that only existed when you were at that desk, and now it's constantly in my pocket. Leave me alone, I need to sleep.

I think it's comforting.

Take those harsh & sublime ideas, make them desirable. Approachable. At least relatable. Are you really watering them down? Ideas need to take seed and then grow. It used to be only a few ideas could get passed through literature... whatever your church could read to you, if you were poor and uneducated. The few stiff novels you could wade through for several months at a time. Yeah, reading used to take ages, at least for pleasure. But now people will read a novel in the span of a week, and read dozens of articles a day. The sheer volume of writing available at anyone, everyone's fingertips collapsed to a singularity, tripled, and then exploded into a microverse inside a square glass jar that sits in your front left pocket and goes to sleep quietly on your night stand. Maybe, the number of ideas seeded in our brains quintupled. Pop media, yellow journalism. Just weeds. Now, when you want an idea to grow- you must nurture it, carve a space for it in your day and your mind, and visit every couple days as thousands of more ideas are flung down into your brain's soil. The author can do whatever he wants to make it a nice little packet of seeds, but something's gotta make it stand out in a sea of free bargain bin variety seeds.

Sadly, the novel is a novelty and literature is rapidly dying. Who can spend $25 to sit on a couch, doing nothing but shuffling paper in a set order? Anyone smart enough to get it for free or given to them, and carve out the time to do so.

The general consensus seems to be that people are getting dumber and more sensationalized and writing to match, out of necessity. I think the exact opposite is true, because information is king and we've just unwittingly mainlined it into our society.

[oats]

@Split I don't think literature is dying at all. The bound book yes, but not reading and writing literature. If anything technology makes people read more than ever now, though the nature of what/how we read is changing dramatically. I honestly believe short stories, novellas, and creative nonfiction are all on an upward trajectory. English is still one of the most populated majors in universities.

Like language itself, writing is transforming to meet the shorter attention spans that people have - there are so many options (for reading and for leisure in general), that most people won't finish something if they aren't instantly hooked. I've had short stories published that are ~1200 words and my professors say are great, and when I share them with other people they say TLDR. That's why input from NC is so valuable to me, because it's representative of a wider demographic than my old college profs. I think a balance can be achieved.

[uh-oh]

my mothers family came to the americas from germany in the 1700's, they helped settle the ohio valley and one was a brady ranger. they were poor, soldier types, on into regular working class folks.

my fathers family came to the americas in the late 1800's early 1900's from italy and im guessing england. no one really knows my fathers fathers heritage but the nme has origins in england so i'll roll with that. my fathers grandfather, his mothers father was a dockworker in newark? whatever the big port town is in new jersey. somehow at his funeral there were over a thousand people and a flower car. my pops thinks he mustve been mafia. i doubt it but what do i know.

those are the origins of my gene pool. german plebians in the heartland of america, indian killing savages who took scalps. and italian/english weirdos who never made it off the east coast.

my journey began in phoenix arizona, september 29th 1989. i lived there until 1991, my father who wasnt in any bike clubs, was friends with a few dirty dozen members who ended up getting brought into the hells angels. he lent his buddy "flash" his truck to go pick up a stripper to bring back to the dirty dozen clubhouse. it was supposed to be for a bachelor party. turns out it was for a group rape.

my father learning of this, and his truck being in the police description decided phoenix was getting a little to crazy, and in 1991 moved us to tampa florida.

we lived there for around 5-6 years. i grew. my dark brown hair was bleached blonde by the florida sun, and i got bit by a spider and almost died.

when i was around 7-8 my mom decided we were all moving to ohio. she has family here, and for some reason my father decided ok lets go.

we moved to canton ohio, and i've been here ever since. while i've lived in massillon, akron, perry, and canton the area code has been the same.

ohio is my home. ohio is where im from.

im a dirty filthy flyover midwestern to the core.

my past means nothing as 99 percent of my memories are from here.

ohio da god

[uh-oh]

in summary

IT AINT WHERE YOU FROM ITS WHERE YOU AT
SO WHEN YOU WALKING THROUGH HARLEM FAGGOT WATCH YA BACK

[Certain]

Originally Posted by oats

@Split I don't think literature is dying at all. The bound book yes, but not reading and writing literature. If anything technology makes people read more than ever now, though the nature of what/how we read is changing dramatically. I honestly believe short stories, novellas, and creative nonfiction are all on an upward trajectory. English is still one of the most populated majors in universities.

Like language itself, writing is transforming to meet the shorter attention spans that people have - there are so many options (for reading and for leisure in general), that most people won't finish something if they aren't instantly hooked. I've had short stories published that are ~1200 words and my professors say are great, and when I share them with other people they say TLDR. That's why input from NC is so valuable to me, because it's representative of a wider demographic than my old college profs. I think a balance can be achieved.

Mostly accurate. Split's analysis seems straight out of 1994 or 1984 (the year, not the novel) or 1974. But the Internet and handheld devices have led to a boom in terms of quantity of published writing but also in terms of reading.

What undeniably has decreased has been the subjective quality of what people are reading. It used to be that several editors would parse anything before it was published to ensure that it was good enough to engage people. Now we spend time reading Tumblr posts by pseudonym-bearing authors. That's not to say that there can't be great work in those Tumblr posts, but it's not as heavily parsed and scrutinized now that it costs nothing to publish.