Did anyone ever wonder why the democrat party ended up with a donkey as their mascot? Seriously, of all the animals in the world, a donkey? Weird. But that's not at all what this post is about.
I had an interesting realization at some point yesterday. It's not particularly spiritual, insightful, or deep in any way. Just interesting.
I realized that I can put anything I want to on my blog.
"Uh, duh." You say. I would generally agree. But I was thinking more specifically about literature and satire. Let me explain.
When you want to publish a book, or an article, or a newspaper column, there are some things you just can't do. Not because you don't have the right to an opinion that differs from other people's. And not because we aren't in a free country. But for two main reasons: One, it's a career move. You have to be nice to people or you don't go anywhere. Two, also career related, no one will buy or print things that the public doesn't want to hear. People don't buy it, you don't get anywhere. That's about it.
It's all a popularity contest. You have to be more worried about what other people think, which I don't like, but it's a fact of life in jobs like that. Those jobs wouldn't exist without public interest and opinion.
But a blog is something entirely different. A blog is just a random cyberspace slew of inane babble, funny pictures, and occasional deep thought. Well, at least mine is. Some people may have more important or useful things to blog about. I certainly don't. But that's what makes this so cool. It doesn't matter who reads it. It doesn't matter if it changes anything or makes any difference. It doesn't affect my job or my standard of living. It just... well, is.
I've often thought about writing a story that either satirizes or comments on some of the strange oddities of human nature. I'm not entirely sure it will ever happen, because I'm really not as clever as I wish I was. But I continue to think about it. Something like that is tricky, though, for the exact reason that you can't just blurt out any old thing you want. As sad as it is to be constrained by public opinion, like I said, that's just how it is. You have to be really careful about what you say, and what you infer.
Like in the wizard of Oz, for example. There's this underlying symbolic meaning about the fight between using gold or silver for the monetary standard. I don't know if Mr. Baum meant it that way or not, but it's there all the same. But he never named the evil witch after the person he disagrees with, or blatantly says 'gold is better'. It's all subtle symbols like walking the path of the yellow brick road, etc. That's what you have to do, and I'm really not sure I'm witty enough, or even remotely subtle enough to pull that off.
But on my blog, I can do anything I like. If I wanted to start a story like this, I could:
Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Barack. Barack was a bitter, jealous, and misguided little boy, because he was so self conscious about his skin color. "Someday I'll show them," he said to himself. "Someday I'll be the president and do whatever I want! That'll teach them to make fun of my vaguely brown skin."
Obviously I'm not going to finish that. First of all, because it doesn't have any sort of plot or direction. I just made it up as an example. And second of all, because at the moment, I don't have anything political to say. I probably will do something ridiculous like that in the future, but not now. And not about that particular subject.
But I could finish it if I wanted to. It's pretty awesomly glorious to be able to make fun of anything I want, and no one can care. They can get mad, and make rude comments and stuff. But it's just a blog. So whatever. (shifty eyes)
Anyway, that's really all I wanted to say. Laters.
No comments:
Post a Comment