Justifying Why You Should Waste Your Valuable Time Reading My Random Thoughts
I do not like blogs. I rarely read them. I do not ever
follow them. It seems to me the two main reasons people start blogs are to vent
their personal feelings, or chase the unlikely chance they will gain enough publicity to quit their real jobs and just sell adds. Both of those reasons I find just a little bit sad.
Yet (cue the obvious contradiction), I am writing all of this on a blog... So why does this site exist? More to the point, why should you keep reading? I am
not even going to attempt to answer the second question, you are probably avoiding doing something anyway and really shouldn't waste your time here. But I do actually have an answer to the first question, and now that I have
disclaimed any delusions of grandeur and made an appropriately self denigrating
apology for you having stumbled onto this page, I will try my best to
explain why I have decided to set these words among the ever increasing
wasteland of internet blog sites.
“I should write” is a thought I have been kicking around in my
head for the better part of the past year. Nothing much ever came of it, partly because I sort of hate the actual process of writing, but also because I
had no real idea of what I should be writing.
I tried writing a few short stories, since it was fiction
novels that I most enjoyed reading and that taught me the value of good
writing. But after failing to get beyond the first half of any of my ideas
without hating what I had already written, I have come to realize something
about myself: I am NOT a fiction author.
It still hurts me a little to see that written down. I have enormous respect for authors like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, Andrew Peterson, and many other writers whose stories have taught me many things about good, evil, truth, love,
sorrow, faith and hope. A small piece of my heart still dreams that one day I might create something half as helpful as their works. But in an interesting twist of reality, the love and respect I have for these stories has helped me see that I do not really operate on the mental plane as the authors who created them.
To create a story like Lord of the Rings or the Wingfeather
Saga requires the author to see creation through an artist’s eyes and experience the
world with an artist’s heart. Music moves us because it conveys an idea or
expression to the hearer on two planes. The lyrics and the notes move together
to explain to our hearts and paint in our minds a deeper understanding of the thought being
played across the medium of sound. In the same way, a story teller can take an idea or
concept and explain it in terms of actions, drama and consequences, such that
the reader understands more about that idea than he ever could have with a simple
definition or explanation.
To write a story that faithfully expresses the realities
of our world, the writer must first be able to see and feel those realities in
their fullness. Only then can he retell what he has understood in such a way that that
fullness can be felt and understood by another. While I have learned to deeply
appreciate what these men are accomplishing in their ability to write stories
that are full of truth, I have not found that this same ability within myself.
Possibly I am too analytical, too practically minded to fully rejoice at what is
good, revile what is bad, and describe the quiet awesome wonder that is hope in
the face of despair. I think one of the reasons I really love stories so much is because they have helped me to see and feel this world more
fully than I ever would have on my own.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I both want you to
understand the thought process which lead me to write this blog, and because
explaining my thoughts on stories was the easiest way to show you what I
actually want to write. I may not be good at capturing truth in a fictional story, but I believe God has given me a an ability to understand the substance of things (like what makes good stories so awesome) and then to explaining it simply and clearly to other people.
Some people call it teaching, some people call it philosophizing, some people call it blogging and a waste of time. Whatever you call it doesn’t really matter to me, but you should know that it is what I plan to do with this blog. I spend a lot of time thinking about random things and trying to articulate what I really think about them. Most of the time this comes out as rambling, and is directed at whoever will stay close enough to hear me. But I want to be more disciplined with my musings than that, so I decided to put the clearest of my thoughts into a blog where other people might read them. At least I will have to be disciplined enough to use correct grammar.
Initially, I did not see much value in writing
anything if I couldn’t write stories, or at least a topical, in-depth study of
something. But just writing this one post has helped me to understand my thoughts on writing and conveying ideas. For that alone it has been a
valuable discipline. On the off chance that you read it this far and have been helped by what I had to say, then I will consider it time well spent.
Maybe one day, if this goes long enough, I’ll even stop
saying that I hate blogs.
