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I f’n hate blogs

By April 15, 20195 Comments

Gotta do what you gotta do

I fucking hate blogs.

It’s only right to explain why this blog section is aptly titled I hate blogs. I certainly don’t hate writing about my thoughts. It’s what I do every goddamn day, albeit in different styles and types. Every piece of writing is worth sharing because it’s intimately fused with some thought, emotion, deeply recessed memory or particle of the subconscious. The only thing that matters is making sure you’re writing something that means something to you. People can sniff out bogus shit like bloodhounds.

Put simply, I don’t hate the idea of having to blog. I don’t like the idea of having to frame my thoughts in such a way on such a platform. It somehow feels counterfeit, almost spurious. I can identify a few reasons why, and I’ll break them down for you.

First off, I’m an introverted cat. I work a job that brings me face to face with dozens of people every day, which easily becomes hundreds with every week’s conclusion. I don’t hate it. I thought I did, I even wanted to, but I don’t. Not even close. The restaurant industry may be shite in many respects, but I’ve gotten used to it. Gradually, I’ve learned to like and even need it as the one and only social outlet at my disposal. If it weren’t for my working in a restaurant, I might never utter more than a few ‘good days’ while buying darts and groceries in the course of a week. Circling back, I definitely wouldn’t call myself an open book, especially with strangers. I’m rarely incentivized to share my laboriously drawn-out opinions with people I don’t know, and I’m even less likely to offer my genuine take on a topic.

I like to marinate on serious, life-impacting questions with a sense of security. When my musings are veiled through literature, I (most likely) won’t be hacked to pieces for stretching the gamut of possibilities and playing devil’s advocate. You see, taking a difficult question and creating characters to insulate damaging criticisms resulting from hyperbolic thought is a fundamental aspect of my writing. In other words, I can say that I don’t know a single damn thing for certain. It’d be mad smug to assume otherwise. My opinions aren’t weak, but I’m open to being swayed with sweet, sexy logic and hard, wet facts. Holding an opinion is as dangerous as holding a pin-less grenade.

My closest friends allow me to ramble at caustic lengths, leaving me space to determine a sufficient middle ground. In the same vein, the characters in my writing represent conversations I have with myself. In fact, they literally embody divergent opinions, even if none are mine, and work through a dialectic process to obtain something tenable. I’ve used them, and writing in general, to bare my true feelings about socio-cultural phenomena and confounding events in my life that I would have otherwise refrained from sharing had I not been able to use my characters as proxies to absorb the brunt of playing both devil and angel-winged devil. I often decline fisticuffing a topic I have only half an opinion or a faint understanding about; I just let the person opposite wax for a moment and try to learn something new. People can and will take you at your opinions no matter how strong or flimsy they are held. This is dangereux. Especially if you are speaking or writing about something political or sensitive, and are just parroting something that you have heard, that sounds right, and hasn’t been deliberated upon or researched. I could spend a long time on this, the world is so complex, one needs to rework their outlook almost daily in these frenetically progressing times.

This all relates to my music theory: people who stop growing philosophically and rationally keep the same opinions, just like those who find their taste in music and stay with it. Whether it’s ’94 hip hop, turn of the millennium alternative or mid-aught screamo, we all know a cat like that. You don’t have to love new music, but there’s something to be said for having an appreciation for trends and the ways in which new generations sees things. For every Lil’ Xan, there’s still an A.F.R.O. There was also a Talib, Mos Def and Common for every Mims and Chingy. Shit, if you like it, then just like it. The world is as absurd as ever. It makes no sense to me and probably never will. However, you can’t overlook how important it is to think for yourself and stay true to gain a little understanding.

Side tracked, my bad.

There’s another reason I don’t like the idea of blogging: I don’t like strange people getting too familiar. Maybe I’m a sentimentalist. Maybe I’m some outdated, leather-bound-book-sniffing cunt who wants to maintain a few slivers of mystery and only have his personality guessed-at based on what’s in between his book covers. My favourite authors didn’t write blogs. They did write letters, however. They’d occasionally reveal that they were neurotic and paranoid individuals quivering pens against lousy pieces of parchment to avoid the temptation to end it all. Sometimes they’d reveal that they were languid bores: stock-image humans. Either way, I’m not one for reality shows or getting to know every artist beyond their art. Sometimes, a biography and/or a microscope in to the mind of an artist is fascinating and incredible. Other times, I’d rather have my opinions elaborated by the tone and structure of their particular brand of art, left person to person to dissect and internalize. Perhaps it’s a question of intimacy. Why do people deserve to be let into the inner chambers of someone’s juicy, soul-like centre? Maybe I’m just a miserly hermit who wants to be left to his own worktable and devices. However, I’ve seen a few interviews and the like with artists I was a fan of and lost respect for them as a result. Pity.

I suppose the best way for me to write blogs is to write as though no one will ever read them.

My other issues with blogs are much simpler. Think pieces are messy and I’m already poorly skilled with grammar and punctuation (thanks Syd)! I also don’t want to plan these pieces out too much, as that would defeat the purpose of shooting from the hip and cascading my thoughts into absolute free falls.

Last, I worry about stepping on the toes of future projects.

That last point is petty, but it’s a fear I have in the nascent stages of this endeavour nevertheless. I don’t want to be a skipping record, overusing themes and voice.

Anyways, I write best when I’m seeing red. I’ll take some notes or stab a notebook, coming off the rage and working it out. I see a fair bit of red, so don’t worry. Given a “blogging” outlet, two things could happen.

  1. I will end up losing steam in other (prospective) projects.
  2. You will all end up thinking that I’m just an angry dude with misanthropic tendencies and get bored the way people do when someone at work won’t stop complaining about the commute from the suburbs.

I immediately talked myself down from the first point, as I often do when I undertake this kind of exercise with myself. Yay. There is no shortage of things swirling in the ol’ skullet.

Regarding the second point, well, fuck it. That shouldn’t bother me unless it hampers “my brand.” To be honest, angry and misanthropic seems pretty “on brand” anyways, at least for the moment.

I’ve never read anyone else’s blog and I don’t want to research how it’s done. I’ve been struck with a case of malaiziness: a combination of malaise and laziness. That term was just created. You saw it here first! This post might already be too long for all I know. Give me feedback. I love criticism, as long as it doesn’t take the form of a facile and cowardly rebuking.

To conclude, I would like to say that I promise nothing regarding my blogs. Writing them may annoy the fuck out of me and cause me to shrug this mission entirely. It could become a burden that I don’t want to deal with and instead remain focused on a more conventional form of releasing literature with longer intervals in-between. On the other hand, it could prove to be a nice wailing wall, helping me avoid killing a motherfucker and leaving my coworkers saying “he was always such a quiet boy, I didn’t think he had it in him.” We all get murder-y here and there, and I mainly run on spite, black coffee and tobacco. See? That could’ve been a character’s description in a booky wook, right there! These jewels, they fall from my loot sack so carelessly. Give me a hand, would you?

Anyways, thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far. You’ve already been rewarded by having an attention span longer than your eyelashes. I will hopefully explain why I even like blogs in a special mid-week piece.

Sorry for cussing,

Papa Croft

5 Comments

  • Ted says:

    I read to the end!

  • Eleanore says:

    Sure I’m offended… sure I had trouble following some rabbit trails, but dang it, I read it to the end because I loves ya!!

  • Sue says:

    You’re never boring, always on hovering on the unpredictable, a little crass, a little class. Keep going…i’ll Keep reading.

  • Eileen says:

    I love the blog Corey. Funny and insightful…great writing!

  • AK says:

    I’m looking forward to hearing more insights from the product of a Irish ancestors brought up a Canadian boy in Surrey.