Writing is a strange beast. I enjoy it, yet find myself lacking motivation to actually do it. I don't actually enjoy the process, the actual typing, though there is a sort of...calm peacefulness about the act of writing that I guess is pleasurable, a sort of focusing of the mind, a meditation in some strange way. But the real joy is after the act is completed, when I can look back at what I've written. I can say Lo! There is a thing that I have created. I have put letters together to form words, words together to build sentences, strung sentences together to form paragraphs and Behold! A text has been made! Ideas have been laid bare upon the page! Look at what I have created!
That is entirely overly dramatic and yet somewhat true. Writing is like any other act of creation, be it painting a picture or building a house. You can look at what you have done, see how you have put different materials together in different ways, and how it all has come together at the end. Maybe the house falls over, the picture falls flat and the writing is shown to be crude and simple, but the attempt is still there, amid the debris of failure, there are always bits and pieces showing that you tried, and to attempt and fail is always better then to never attempt at all.
I have heard I could write a column, but I am doubtful. To write a column, you need to write about real things, current events and such. I suppose I could do that, but I'm hesitant.
Take the NFL Lockout. In my head, it's simple, wealthy people versus wealthier people. The owners want more money, their billions of dollars every year just isn't enough to survive on. Must be tough. So they want a bigger piece of the massive monetary mountain the NFL provides, and to do so they want to add another game to the season, 18 game total.
The problem is, or as much as I know of it from watching ESPN infrequently and from what I hear from other fellow NFL fans, is they don't want to pay the players anymore for the longer season. Well obviously the players are pissed about this, longer season means more injuries for a sport already plagued with injuries.
To be honest, I don't care. I don't care if they add another game or not. Another Sunday watching football wouldn't be too bad, watching football is always a good time, though do Americans really need an extra day to sit on their ass, drinking beer, eating junk food, watching television and being bombarded with advertisements?
I literally don't care about the Lockout. 17 games in the regular season is fine by me, I just want to be able to watch the Giants occasionally. I don't have a side in this situation, I just want to watch football. I find it hard to side with the players, some of whom make ridiculous amounts of money for working out and playing a sport, something a lot of people do for fun. Yes there are injuries, but that's what happens when you strap in five inches of padding and the rules allow you to dive headfirst into each other at top speeds. We want the big hits, and the players do too, we both love it, so stop complaining about injuries, you as a player should know what you're getting into. High Risk, High Reward.
But I also can't side with the owners, who just seem like a bunch of greedy old bastards who just can't settle for the wealth they already have. Sometimes I think that might be a problem we all have. The American Dream, the idealistic notion of always striving for something greater has been turned into The American Greed, always striving for something of more monetary value. Nobody's happy with what they have, especially those who have more than others.
I don't give a shit about the Lockout, nobody that I know does either, other then for the fact that we may not be watching football come fall. Hell, maybe it'd be a good thing. Maybe we'd find something better to do with our free time like go outside on a nice fall Sunday. Fuck it, I'll go watch Rugby, where there are lesser pads, harder hits, and more sensible tackling rules.
But what do I know? I barely watch ESPN, so what can I say about this Lockout situation? It's probably much more complex and complicated then I think it is, so how can my opinion be relevant? I think this is why I refrain from writing about current events and why I stick to fiction. You have to do research when you write about actual events. It's so hard, in fact, it' seems almost impossible to know the truth of something. In this Information Age, I find it harder and harder to really know anything about what's going on in the world. Do I watch Fox News or CNN? Do I want a liberal bias or a conservative bias? Do I want to see crazy hippies with long dreads or rich old white guys and chicks shooting wolves out of a helicopter? It's insane how divided everyone is, black and white, right or left, blah blah blah. I barely watch the news anymore because, what's the point? I'm only getting one side of a story, I'm only getting what a few people want me to see. Someone's always selling something.
Man, did this get off-track. As I said, writing is a strange beast, and it doesn't always go where you think it will. You can run right off the trail and not even realize it, and then you're so far gone you're lost in the woods, and there's nothing to do but to keep on going, keep on writing. That's another thing about writing, about any act of creation, the unknown. The fact that you really don't know how something is going to turn out until it's all over and you look back on it. It's exciting and frightening at the same time.
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. ~Mark Twain
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