A Work In Progress: The Raw Truths
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to The Rawness RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
(Latest addition in red)
#1. When people admonish you to “be more original,” what they really mean is “be more like me.” When people admonish you to “be a free thinker,” they really mean “try to think more like me.”
#2. Everyone knows you can’t turn a ho into a housewife…but turning a housewife into a ho ain’t no picnic either.
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading ...
I totally agree.
I wouldn’t exactly say that. Some people can just pick up when what they are reading is forced or out of the comfort zone of the person writing it. Write what you know and are passionate about and you’ll sound informed and passionate.
sornie’s last blog post..It was a raucous caucus
i probably agree with the second part, but definitely not the first. if anything, i’d say that “be original” suggests “be LESS like me… or anybody else i’ve already seen/heard.”
i guess i’d need some examples or some kind of context to understand the scenario you’re trying to paint.
well, actually… let me rephrase that a bit.
i do believe that people are much more accepting of “unoriginality” when the unoriginal thought/behavior mirrors their own beliefs and preferences.
however, i don’t think that the exhortation to “be original” is necessarily saying “be like me.” it might be saying “be less like YOU,” though.
Uchenna - I’ll use some examples from my life. George Carlin said in a standup once that everyone who drives, no matter how they drive, thinks that anyone going slower than them is a grandma and anyone going faster than them is a reckless maniac. I think people are actually like that with EVERYTHING though. Like, with women, anyone who has more sex than they do is a whore, anyone who has less is a prude. For many guys anyone who’s less aggressive then they are is on the wimpy side and anyone more aggressive is a dick.
I think originality is the same. We all claim we respect originality, or think we are original, but when we come upon some REAL originality, we lock it up in insane asylums. Like, the hipster thinks he is original because he isn’t dressed like the preppy, but he’s surrounded by a bunch of like-minded hipsters with the same “original” sensibility. He may consider people who dress more mainstream than him to be lemmings and admonish them to be more original. But if that same hipster comes across a guy dressed even more outrageously, like in a pink-dyed potato sack covered with mohair and plastic crabs, he won’t congratulate him for originality, he’ll call him a nut. Or the progressive athiest thinks he is original because he doesn’t subscribe to Christianity like most of the nation. But he does his best to associate with people who look like him, live in the places he respects, read pro-Athiest books like God is Not Great By Christopher Hitchens and engage in predictable debates about religion. He’s unoriginal too, he’s just copying a different crowd. He’ll accuse the religious guy of being a lemming and not having an original thought, yet ironically enough he’ll give the religious guy a reading list of athiest books to read so that he can learn to be more original. That’s exactly the opposite of making someone be more original since you’re telling them to learn it from a book (meaning it’s not an original thought) and it’s a blatant attempt to make the person more like him. Now tell that same Athiest that you believe that global warming is caused by the combination of frog farts and cheeseburger fumes mixing in the atmosphere, he won’t think “Wow, I don’t agree with that guy, but I love his originality,” he’ll think “This guy’s fucking nuts.” I’m not particularly religious, but I just use athiests as an example because since the Hitchens book came out they’re the most egregious offenders of the “be more original” mindset.
So just like anyone driving slower than you is a grandma, anyone more traditional than you is a lemming. Just like anyone driving faster than you is a maniac speed demon, anyone displaying more originality than you is a weirdo. Since most of us consider ourselves to be original, we tend to judge people by how much in line their aesthetic and beliefs are to our sensibilities (just like we judge the drivers that drive at our speed to be the best drivers).
That was what I meant.
hmmm… okay, yeah. in that context, i definitely see what you mean.