There are days that you find everything worth writing about, like the puddles formed after last nights rain and the vendor who pushes his cart out every morning as you ride to work. There are also those days that you cannot find it in you to write about anything, even if it is the death of a loved one or the joy of the birth of your child. Then there are the days that you badly want to write, if only to prove to your dithering and now doubtful mind that you still have it in you to write, to offer your mocking mind some form of resistance in your fight to prove that you will write something of worth some day
I write about the things that matter to me only to realize it is not what matters to me but what matters to my perception of my readers that I am trying to pander to. Today my reader is a young man browsing the net aimlessly looking for his shoot of high from information, a very high if it is about phony social moral issues and even higher if it is about sleaze dressed up in the garb of "crime against women" or "rape in India, girl of 9 raped by uncle, atrocious news" or "this woman asks a man to have sex with her, but what he says will blow your mind"
So when I decide to write that kind of stuff, am I whoring out my skill to express the events of the world through my senses? Am I pandering to the lewdness of my readers and giving them a sexual high while I am getting my high of social recognition and positive reinforcement to continue to utilize my imagination and craft of words to gush out stories of decadence carefully camouflaged as ones of concern for the world and its meanness.
Where does a writer find his place in this world of 140 letters and zillion pixel cameras. Where does he find the human spirit of appreciation that is now mired in the need for materialism so great that they have time for only 140 character stories and pictures. His words do not create as many vivid colours of images as a video does. His words ask for the reader to create worlds in their minds rather than serve it up on a plate in high definition. His words do not give them the freedom to see it and go away in an instant. It instead asks for their attention, it asks to be spent time on, it asks to be thought about. And in today's world that is too much to ask for. There is war raging somewhere, there are actors getting married and movies being released. There are crimes of passion happening all around the country and there are politicians spouting acerbic, vicious words of divisiveness. There are internet trends to be followed and youtube videos to be watched. There are new social terms to be learned if you need to remain "cool". A writers words are nothing but sweat soaked thoughts written in a moment of inspiration, lost to the ravages of time, unable to cope with the speed and ease of the ubiquitous 140 characters, pictures/videos.
The world would rather talk about what that famous star wore to a concert than talk about how you felt when you held that new born kid in your hand. The world would be more interested in your deep and heavily thought about review of a movie rather than your thoughts about a book that talked about a family that lived happily and later slowly disintegrated on account of life's vagaries.
A writers place today is limited to a few hearts. The world has no time to extract his emotions or thoughts from his tools of expression; his words. A twitter account or an SLR camera could make a change and cater to his yearning for the spirits that kindle his flame of creativity, but it would never give him the joy of a verse well laid out, of an idea expressed as a string of words that expresses his every thought. He would lose his connection with the true world, he would be another temporarily famous 140 character or photograph...
I write about the things that matter to me only to realize it is not what matters to me but what matters to my perception of my readers that I am trying to pander to. Today my reader is a young man browsing the net aimlessly looking for his shoot of high from information, a very high if it is about phony social moral issues and even higher if it is about sleaze dressed up in the garb of "crime against women" or "rape in India, girl of 9 raped by uncle, atrocious news" or "this woman asks a man to have sex with her, but what he says will blow your mind"
So when I decide to write that kind of stuff, am I whoring out my skill to express the events of the world through my senses? Am I pandering to the lewdness of my readers and giving them a sexual high while I am getting my high of social recognition and positive reinforcement to continue to utilize my imagination and craft of words to gush out stories of decadence carefully camouflaged as ones of concern for the world and its meanness.
Where does a writer find his place in this world of 140 letters and zillion pixel cameras. Where does he find the human spirit of appreciation that is now mired in the need for materialism so great that they have time for only 140 character stories and pictures. His words do not create as many vivid colours of images as a video does. His words ask for the reader to create worlds in their minds rather than serve it up on a plate in high definition. His words do not give them the freedom to see it and go away in an instant. It instead asks for their attention, it asks to be spent time on, it asks to be thought about. And in today's world that is too much to ask for. There is war raging somewhere, there are actors getting married and movies being released. There are crimes of passion happening all around the country and there are politicians spouting acerbic, vicious words of divisiveness. There are internet trends to be followed and youtube videos to be watched. There are new social terms to be learned if you need to remain "cool". A writers words are nothing but sweat soaked thoughts written in a moment of inspiration, lost to the ravages of time, unable to cope with the speed and ease of the ubiquitous 140 characters, pictures/videos.
The world would rather talk about what that famous star wore to a concert than talk about how you felt when you held that new born kid in your hand. The world would be more interested in your deep and heavily thought about review of a movie rather than your thoughts about a book that talked about a family that lived happily and later slowly disintegrated on account of life's vagaries.
A writers place today is limited to a few hearts. The world has no time to extract his emotions or thoughts from his tools of expression; his words. A twitter account or an SLR camera could make a change and cater to his yearning for the spirits that kindle his flame of creativity, but it would never give him the joy of a verse well laid out, of an idea expressed as a string of words that expresses his every thought. He would lose his connection with the true world, he would be another temporarily famous 140 character or photograph...
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