In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* On Politics
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“Someone else decides whether a door opens. A mirror, I can hang myself, anywhere, today.” RJ Redden (see Of Interest)
On Politics
First, don’t worry. This post won’t have even a passing acquaintance with advocating for any candidate or political party. Please read on.
Gag me with a spoon. The damn midterm elections are coming. I hope you’ll vote—PLEASE VOTE—but vote however you like and don’t tell me. I couldn’t begin to care less about that part.
The one thing I can’t tolerate is intolerance, primarily because intolerance leads directly to hypocrisy, half-truths, unwarranted inclusions and omissions, and outright lies.
Frankly, life is too short to put up with that kind of crap.
From a writing standpoint, for example, several years ago, I stopped following The KillZone blog because I couldn’t abide the blatant hypocrisy over there.
In countless posts, pretty much every contributor to KillZone publicly proclaimed “Hey, whatever works for you is fine!” They still do.
And then they dogpile the hell out of anyone who dares suggest that outlining and character-sketching and world-building is NOT the only way to write fiction. Sheer mob-mentality hypocrisy in action.
In fact, one professional female writer over there who is considered ‘prolific’ because she ‘churns out’ two 60,000 word novels per year even claimed that I write into the dark because I view the words I write as “precious.”
Maybe, but I don’t see them as precious enough to revise them endlessly or seek critical input or rewrite them dozens of times in pursuit of perfection.
Actually, (shrug) I only want to let the people who are actually LIVING the story TELL the story. Doesn’t that sound fair?
Besides, I’m actually intelligent enough to know that what one reader absolutely loves, another wouldn’t give an enemy to use for toilet paper.
Okay, are you getting my reasoning? Why should I mine those folks’ posts for items for Of Interest?
I suppose monsters have to exist, but I don’t have to feed them.
But I digress. This is supposed to be about politics, a matter I very seldom talk about because it doesn’t have anything to do with fiction writing. Nor should it.
A few days ago I checked on another blog I’ve been following for over a decade. It used to be a great blog, especially for beginning writers, and back in the day I learned a lot there.
I followed the blog for so long specifically because the author stuck to Things He Actually Knows. And above all else, he never offered uninformed opinions on hot-button topics that have nothing to do with writing fiction.
For example, he never talked about his religious or political leanings (though he hinted at times), and he certainly never insisted that anyone else should believe exactly as he does.
So I felt safe there, like I was in the home of a friend, not out on patrol in a damn nasty jungle where bad things happen just often enough that you don’t expect them. (See “My Quote of the Day” from my previous post.)
So a few days ago I visited the site, just poking around looking for items to pass along in Of Interest because Every Now And Then he still drops a gem that some beginning writers might find useful.
And I walked straight into an ambush. In one short blog post, the guy went whole-hog political, and ridiculously so, complete with vitriolic, palpable hatred.
I was more than a little stunned. In a few thoughtless seconds, he had completely shattered two decades of trust. Yes, I left a comment—one that included the advice in the second bulleted list below—and No, he didn’t let it through. Big surprise there. Not.
I won’t visit that site again, even for TNDJ. I consider myself a relatively patient guy, but I can’t abide hatemongers, wide-brush prejudice, and outright stupidity from any ‘side’ any more than I can abide hypocrites and hypocrisy.
Now, I will neither mention nor verify the name of the author or the blog because I don’t want to get sued, so please don’t ask. (That’s how thoroughly my sense of trust was shattered during my recent visit.)
If you enjoy writing about hot-button topics like religion or politics or other issues that are intensely personal to each of us, by all means please have at it.
But please also have the common decency and courtesy to be up front about it so those of us who are inclined to avoid such things know better than to drop by.
I for one am not at all interested in watching control freaks on both sides of an issue hurl insults and uninformed opinions back and forth. If I wanted that, I’d spend more time on Facebook or X instead of doing something useful like poking myself in the eye with my finger.
If you write an interesting blog about Writing or Fiction or Science or Psychology or Philosophy or pretty much anything else, please let me know. I’d love to check it out. Just please stick to the overall topic you chose.
But back to politics: I don’t do politics.
I much prefer to respect others and their opinions even when I don’t necessarily agree with those opinions. And I can’t respect anyone who is narrow-minded, short-sighted, and enough of a bully to stomp all over those who offer a different opinion.
As a veteran for whom the oath of office actually means something (unlike many politicians on both sides of the aisle), I’m thrilled when people exercise their right to vote.
But as I wrote at the outset, I don’t much care to know for whom they vote or why. How you vote is none of my business, which, you know, is why we cast our votes in private.
- Have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”? Hey, good for you. Please keep it to yourself.
- Still torqued that Obama sent pallets piled high with cash to an Islamic kingdom on a secret red-eye run? Hey, good for you. Please keep that to yourself too.
If anyone asked my opinion about whom they should vote for in any election, I wouldn’t even mention a name. I would only recommend they do what I do:
- Turn off CNN and Fox and CBS and NBC and all the other poison peddlers out there and shut out all the sound-bites and other noise from both sides. Then,
- Long before election day arrives, compare each candidate’s OWN actions (not what someone else claims s/he did) with his or her OWN words (again, not what someone else claims s/he said), and then
- Simply don’t vote for those candidates who have revealed themselves (in your personal opinion) to be liars and thieves. Or at least the worst liars and thieves.
And for goodness’ sake, don’t paint the members of any political group, race, religion etc. with a broad, all-encompassing, hate-filled brush. If you wake up in the mood to do something that insanely stupid, roll over and go back to sleep for a little while. Please.
Now tell me, how does any of that not make sense?
Oh, and just in case any politicians out there are reading this, how many fewer donations would you need for your campaign if you’d stop sending all those ridiculous, mostly mud-slinging postcards?
Unless you only recently crawled out from under the slimy side of a rock somewhere or are so chock-full of yourself that a mirror won’t bother casting your reflection, you know those ridiculous mailings are just gonna get thrown away or recycled anyway, so why not save the bucks and not have them printed and mailed in the first place?
Of Interest
One Chapter, Six Mirrors: My Experiment in Getting Found Interesting concept. I guess I ‘hung a mirror’ for A Little Time in my post about observation.