The Beginning

This blog was born out of the idea that no one is original, and almost no one truly cares about what you have to say excepting that your opinion is already esteemed...sort of a Catch-22. What results from this is a generation of critics where scarce are the souls who actually dare to do anything. Criticism is easy -hold your horses, literary critics.

"I could have made a better movie..."

"Going mainstream ruined that band."

The list goes on. And while we find a certain level of comfort in giving our half-thought-through criticisms of movies, music, and presidential policy, what have we really accomplished? What have we actually created for ourselves? At the risk of sounding like Rob Bell, let me actually attempt to answer the questions I've presented. There is a place for criticism. It is vital to form an opinion on pertinent issues. We don't have the luxury of being ignorantly blissful, life is happening whether you are conscious of it or not. That being said, what if all everyone did was critique? Eventually the only things left to critique would be critiques! Who are the criticized? The do-ers. I commend them for it, and wish to do likewise. By doing, something is created. Something original to yourself, albeit not something inherently original, we are not the Creator. BUT we have been endowed with creativity - all of us have. Use it.

Now for some more personal context. I started a blog about 3 years ago now. It was a personal blog in which I shared my thoughts on certain ideas. Putting yourself "out there" means you are now vulnerable. Although I was typing out my thoughts, I didn't share them. At the risk of feeling boastful about myself, and battling with the feelings I described in my first paragraph (the "no one cares about my thoughts anyway" mentality), I didn't share my blog with anyone, and I think I made something like 5 posts. More of a diary than a self-publishing platform. Last year I wanted to write again. I pulled up my blogger account and changed my first blog entirely. New name, new format, and a new theme. This time around I played the critic. I blogged about new recipes, movies I had watched, and even art. I still enjoy it, in fact I kept the blog, its good for what it is. But none of the recipes were mine. And I certainly didn't write any screenplays or paint anything.

There is a quote that caught my eye. I was in the passenger seat of my friend's car in snowy Chicago. Its from Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." Now I don't know if I'll ever have a "great mind," nor am I sure that that should be one of my goals, but there is something to be said for this. Events and people can function on their own - they need no help existing. But ideas...ideas don't happen on their own. The nature of ideas is that they are thought up. They are the content of cognition. So what I am going to push myself to do is counter-cultural in a sense. Lets make more doers. To criticize is comfort, to create is to be vulnerable...but you have still DONE something! Let that outweigh the fear of criticism.