I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman’s book Eating the Dinosaur and he is a much more intelligent person than me. I know this as I sit here trying to think of it’s then me, than I, then I. He is able to explain ideas on why people do things instead of the way I do by just saying “I think they’re stupid.” I’m going to quote a paragraph from his book to give you an idea of what I mean:
“If you’ve spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed a peculiar literacy trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It’s supposed to signify that the write is self aware! And this is idiotic. It’s the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that’s not the case in the modern age; now the exclamation point signifies creative confusion.”
I’m obviously not smart enough to put this in words as well as Klosterman but I agree completely. I think the majority of the population is just confused. I’ve written before how I don’t just throw exclamation points into my writing and I’m happy to see some validation to my thoughts previous to reading this book. The same thing applies to people who throw a ton of letters while texting into words to try to be cute. They aren’t stupid people they are just confused about being an individual because society has made them think that this form of writing is accepted. All their friends text this way so they are going to do it too. By trying to be different, they are just conforming.
So where am I getting with all this? I’m not really sure. It’s not like from now on anyone who texts me with words spelled like this “whhyyyyy”, I’m going to stereotype as a moron. It really has nothing to do with that. I’m think I’m just trying to make myself feel better about my own human existence. When I see Bud send texts and emails with perfect punctuation, I think it says something about his personality. He’s a no nonsense conformist who doesn’t like breaking the rules. It’s not entirely true but still I think it’s a good example for the post. I sometimes don’t like capitalizing my texts so that should give you an idea of the rule breaker I am. I also want to point out too that there is such a generation gap with me and “young adults” that I’m probably becoming an old fart. When I see facebook updates like Thx, I’ll c ya, my head spins. As every person getting older thinks, the younger generation is doooooomed.
One other thing I took out of the book was authenticity. People who lie aren’t people you want to be around. They will never be successful, and if they are, it’s usually done underhandedly. Honest people who tell the truth have a far greater chance at “making it.” It’s why I hope this blog will eventually catch on. I don’t fabricate story’s and I try to be as honest as I can with my posts. I give you my thoughts straight from my brain as I think them. This is my work. Rnningfool.com is me. I don’t steal ideas and this is something that even if I never achieve stardom, I know I can be proud of. If you’ve read this post this far you’ll know that you are reading my work and everything that comes along with it. I hope you, the reader, take something productive out of reading about my life because this is my reality.
