Intro
About six weeks ago, I decided once and for all to start my own blog. This was no small thing, because until recently I didn’t even like the word “blog.” I thought it sounded cheap, and more than a little dirty. And indeed it does. So be it. I myself am cheap and dirty.
Why am I cheap and dirty? Because I need to be cheap and dirty. Why do I need to be cheap and dirty? Ah, well…that’s an important question, and one that is going to take some time to answer.
The overall answer will come, in bits and pieces, from my posts to this blog. I hope that, upon reading this introduction, that you will either:
- Join me for the entirety of this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor,
- Check in on occasion to see how this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor is going, or
- Die, unhappy and alone, with your pants around your ankles (in the case that you do not choose option one or two).
For the sake of clarity, as well as in an effort to gain your continued attention, I will now briefly explain why I am making such a big deal out of the words “cheap” and “dirty,” before then finishing up with some information on what you can expect to find upon visiting this site as time marches on. And on. And over and through your body and face.
The short of it: only recently, after many years of finding every reason and excuse not to do so, have I begun to really live my life. And I’m not even doing that much. Except that I am.
The point: I am (supposedly) a mature and intelligent person. Inside my brain is an overpriced overrated Ivy League education. I have a loving family, a beautiful, intelligent and caring girlfriend, and two fat-assed adorably obese cats. Except for one small bout with a life-threatening mystery virus a few years ago, and a stomach that refuses to absorb vitamin B-12, I’m also pretty healthy. I live in what used to be one of the greatest cities in the world, in what used to be the best country in the world-
“Ah, he’s a communist.”
No, I am not a communist!
People like to joke around with me, when I start ranting about some of the things that I am about to rant about, by calling me a communist. I’m not a communist.
But seriously. We’ve arrived at the problem, best summarized by the word “America.” Although “Americans” works as well.
“Ah, he’s a radical.”
I don’t know. Maybe I am a radical. If I am, I’m the only one I know who isn’t an idiot.
The paragraph above, that claimed to include “the point” but didn’t quite (get used to that happening), basically ends like this: …despite all of this (good stuff), I am mostly dissatisfied with my life. And I don’t think I’m alone. Especially among young people, I don’t think I’m alone. But apart from that, as far as I can tell, I’m a little alone, and that, more than making me feel lonely…makes me mad.
Hence the title of this blog, The Furious Romantic.
Let it be known that I don’t entirely like this title. So feel free to knock it (around like a wooden puppy). About six weeks ago, when I decided once and for all to blog, I got excited and bought this URL, and wanted to start right away, but didn’t, and later I didn’t like the title but it was too late…so here we are. I had been working on a different introductory post that started by explaining the importance of this title, and which then continued to segue into my reasons for starting the site, but this post grew too big and wordy and confusing and I canned it. I canned it an hour ago when I first started writing this introductory post, but it will be back, because when I was working on it I hit on some important points that I had been chasing for a long time. I doubt anyone cares about any of this information.
I am furious because when I walk through my life, and this holds true more so in New York (the aforementioned “once great” city that has been my home for the past six years) than in any other place I have been so far, all I see is waste and decay. I see physical waste, I see intellectual waste, I see moral waste and I see bulging waists. The same list plays on for decay. Yes. I even see bulging decay. It’s really gross and it needs to go away. Today. Okay?
I’m a romantic, I guess, because I think that there are plenty of reasons for trying to eliminate that waste, and reverse that decay, and because at bottom I believe in the average American’s potential for doing both these things successfully, for his or her self, and (mostly) on his or her own. I want it all to get better and I want it to get better right now.
That’s a problem, I know, because this can’t happen. Now is too big and now is too fast. But that’s my problem and I’m working at it…but at the same time…take a look around. More and more people seem to me very unhappy with things from day to day. And I don’t necessarily mean that everybody is frowning around town. Rather, much like the me that I’m trying to do battle with right now, they’re stuck in this vicious cycle of trying to keep out of their own way. A growing anxiety, to be rich, to be safe, to be liked, loved, to be admired or successful - a simple need to extract some sort of meaning out of the tangle of our otherwise routine lives - seems to me to be informing the majority of our social and, lately, even our personal, interactions.
Now is too big because we’re surrounded by a dizzying array of opportunities and choices. Now is too fast because information and communication is at our fingertips twenty-four hours a day. And the situation is dramatically worse among the young. Many of us, intellectual and non-intellectual alike, have no idea what it means to feel truly alive in the realm of daily life. So we turn to the television, the movies, we turn to web sites built upon what used to be personal information, as sources of continual “second hand” experiences and interactions. Lacking in the way of any real meaning, we cater instead to our insecurities, to our childlike, desperate needs for attention, affirmation, and love.
The political climate of this country for the past several years has been much discussed by now as dangerous to democracy, to our global image and legacy, and to the freedoms of the individual American. Similarly lengthy discussions have sprung up in regards to the state of the media in this country, to the state of the popular culture at large. But I haven’t heard many people discussing how this climate emerged in the first place, or why things have deteriorated to the point that they have culturally. I have heard a lot of clamoring, a lot of Bush-bashing, a lot of sarcasm, and a whole lot of just plain bare-assed whining. But I haven’t heard any guesses, guesses as to what’s going on and why. Shouldn’t there be more talk in this regard? On top of caring about our jobs and our financial futures, our marriages and our children…shouldn’t we care about the quality of our actual lives?
If you ask me, we, as a nation, are at an important juncture in our history. That’s a big thing to say. Trust me, I know it’s a big thing to say, because I’ve been carrying the regret of not saying it, for fear of being wrong, around with me for a long time now. But there it is, finally, in black and white (pixels), released into the public forum.
We are at an important juncture in our history. The American way of life is getting (even) easier, and its moving faster, and yet we don’t seem to be going anywhere at all. Ironically, we are becoming so static that we’re starting to hum and vibrate with wasted energy, and so we’re moving anyway. And we aren’t humming down the right road.
I believe that we are on the road that leads to more waste and decay. Eventually…this road leads also to (a kind of) death. It’s paved in spiritlessness and fear, and its travelers walk onward, perpetually and on their way to death, in a state of increasing anomie. Upon this road walk people whose lives are too clean and too perfect (in theory, not in actuality) to contain anything that is truly human. They move without knowing or caring why, because movement is all they know. The live without knowing or caring why, because they have learned to safely ignore the unpleasant truth that the human condition is permanent.
The other road, the one that we are passing by, leads, if not to happiness, than to satisfaction. Eventually, this road leads to progress. On this road the busy life of the average American is busy not for the sake of busyness (or business) but because the time that has been won by the application of our wealth and our knowledge and our technology to that which is known is being used to better understand what it means to occasionally forgo knowledge, to acknowledge what cannot be known…and just live. This road is paved in faith and courage. Its travelers are thankful for and awed by existence itself, and they walk onward simply because there is no other option that does not lead in the end to bitterness, transference, or regret. These people try to keep themselves safe and clean, and they enjoy the comforts of life, but they do not deny their animal base, do not make life itself a comfort, and they triumph in their humanity simply by accepting the tragedy of their existential situation.
I know the previous two paragraphs are dramatic, but I’m a dramatist. I only want to state clearly why I believe it’s so important to be “a little cheap and dirty.”
It’s important because life is dirty. When you think of what it’s really made from, life is cheap too. Life bleeds and suffers and dies and is full of frightening situations and scenarios that we should absolutely stay wary of and protect ourselves from. But we should not spend all of ourselves endeavoring to be safe, or striving to separate ourselves so that we may feel exceptional. Because we aren’t safe. We aren’t exceptional.
In the absence of evidence for proving the existence of any or all of our gods, we should not fall instead to ignoring the question that precedes those gods: the question of existence. Neither should we waste our energy and our resources doing too much that takes us too far from addressing the simple necessities of life.
And so, I am about done with my inaugural sermon.
This blog represents my attempt to do what I can to push back against the tide. It will be populated, I promise, with concrete examples and specific points of analysis (both of which, I know, are lacking in this introduction) for supporting some of the big, bold claims that form the meat of this first post. Because I am a dramatic and/or creative writer first, and a lunatic radical blogger second, I will also, on occasion, include pieces of my creative work that I believe fit into the central themes that I’ll be exploring in this blog. These themes are, specifically:
- The Internet and The Age of Information: On some days, I will be extolling the virtues of the Internet and its ability to deliver information, entertainment, and communications anywhere and in a jiffy. On most other days, I will be condemning the ways in which most people use, misuse, or overuse the internet and mobile communications devices to waste time, legitimize and/or validate their personal shortcomings (yes, people have shortcomings), and digitize and store life rather than experience it.
- The role that entertainment plays in our daily lives: This one will hopefully become clearer as time goes on: but generally what I mean to discuss is the overall swing towards a sort of national exhibitionism and voyeurism, indicative by the rise of reality television, the YouTube/MySpace/Facebook phenomenon, and the never-been-worse state of celebrity obsession in the country. I’ll also talk about entertainment itself, because at the same time that I’m studying and criticizing the industry, I’ll also be trying to infiltrate it.
- The sad, sorry state of journalism and/or the media: I will touch upon this topic, on occasion, as a natural consequence of discussing the first two.
- Writing: I always have a lot to say about the writing process and being a writer. If and when I feel the urge to publish some thoughts on either, I will try to keep the discussion relevant to topics that are covered in other sections of the blog.
- Life in general: Having written what I have about the “dire state of things” it will likely be necessary for me to bring real-life examples up against the observations that I’ll be making. This will hopefully help legitimize, prove (or disprove) my ideas. At the very least, such examples will at least add some depth and context to what is otherwise being discussed in broader, more general terms.
That, finally, is all. Thanks for reading this far. If you plan on coming back, please let me know. In all honesty, I’ll feel better about this decision and this endeavor if I know someone is listening. And, duh, I’m a writer. I need your attention. I survive on egotism.