delayed write fail
I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction of modern writing. Where is it going based on modern society and where should it really go to protect and promote free and intelligent thought in a society that is so surely losing the ability to think for themselves? A lot of the authors that I've treasured as a young adult have told stories focused inward or with a focus filtered through themselves. (ie David Sedaris, Michael Ian Black, Sarah Vowell, pretty much anyone who's been featured on the radio show This American Life). Many of my peers have gravitated towards writing similarly based memoir stories themselves. Heck, i write sappy journal type entries in a similar light.
But lately, i've felt like this is wrong. Like the trend towards seeing blogging as journalism, or the gravity-induced social networking pull of twitter/tumblr/facebook/google+. At some point, we have to look outside of ourselves, but who can we trust to really do that? (as writers and thinkers). I think the responsbility truly falls to storytellers and writers. I think that the best works of our generation will not be in a twitter feed, but they will come from the imagination of anyone living in our society. Just someone trying to make sense of it all, still trying to find meaning in the world, still trying to find god without judging others, still believing that change is possible even for the worst off of us.
I think, who will do this? Who will look beyond themselves for the greater good? Someone needs to. It's a social imperative that no one can even see. And it drives me crazy because i don't know the answer.
But I have hope.
But lately, i've felt like this is wrong. Like the trend towards seeing blogging as journalism, or the gravity-induced social networking pull of twitter/tumblr/facebook/google+. At some point, we have to look outside of ourselves, but who can we trust to really do that? (as writers and thinkers). I think the responsbility truly falls to storytellers and writers. I think that the best works of our generation will not be in a twitter feed, but they will come from the imagination of anyone living in our society. Just someone trying to make sense of it all, still trying to find meaning in the world, still trying to find god without judging others, still believing that change is possible even for the worst off of us.
I think, who will do this? Who will look beyond themselves for the greater good? Someone needs to. It's a social imperative that no one can even see. And it drives me crazy because i don't know the answer.
But I have hope.