There are times, when I bang off a piece, what, three - perhaps four hundred words in all, and think to myself, gee, that's pretty good work you've got there. Not bad at all for a couple of hours of effort. I don't see why I couldn't be a writer myself.
And then I think of the way I feel about people who tell me they've disproved Einstein's theories using high-school math. Its so easy, they tell. All you have to do is think in a different way, and you could come up with a theory yourself. Except somewhere along the line there's a tiny glaring inconsistency screaming for attention like a child abandoned in a railway station. And the whole thing comes crashing down, and the pioneers of a new age slink away into mundane obscurity.
How would the wordsmiths of this age, people who toil over cadence and metre, who read and reread and edit and scrap and start all over again on a daily basis react if exposed to the excited babblings of a self-proclaimed gifted amateur, who writes in his spare time, no less, and claims to be as good as anybody out there? Would they clap, and shower him with praise, or smile and press a hidden button under their desk that is linked to a well-positioned trapdoor, or scream and rant and pull their hair out by the roots in frustration at this blasphemer, this heretic, this pretender at nobility from the noveau-riche proletariat?
It was recently that my grandmother was telling me of this economist who proved the pythagorean theorem. While my mental faculties were preparing a response, structured along the lines of, 'oh, bugger. not this again...', I was overridden, and asked to look at it first, before being snobbish and dismissive. And that is what I proceeded to do.
I think I now have a slight inkling of why the young english major from NYU had such a stricken look on his face when I told him I write in a blog from time to time. Perhaps it brought back memories of when he had been slapped with a dead fish. Perhaps he thought I was going to ask him to critique it. More likely, though, he was thinking, 'oh, no. not one of those again...'
And then I think of the way I feel about people who tell me they've disproved Einstein's theories using high-school math. Its so easy, they tell. All you have to do is think in a different way, and you could come up with a theory yourself. Except somewhere along the line there's a tiny glaring inconsistency screaming for attention like a child abandoned in a railway station. And the whole thing comes crashing down, and the pioneers of a new age slink away into mundane obscurity.
How would the wordsmiths of this age, people who toil over cadence and metre, who read and reread and edit and scrap and start all over again on a daily basis react if exposed to the excited babblings of a self-proclaimed gifted amateur, who writes in his spare time, no less, and claims to be as good as anybody out there? Would they clap, and shower him with praise, or smile and press a hidden button under their desk that is linked to a well-positioned trapdoor, or scream and rant and pull their hair out by the roots in frustration at this blasphemer, this heretic, this pretender at nobility from the noveau-riche proletariat?
It was recently that my grandmother was telling me of this economist who proved the pythagorean theorem. While my mental faculties were preparing a response, structured along the lines of, 'oh, bugger. not this again...', I was overridden, and asked to look at it first, before being snobbish and dismissive. And that is what I proceeded to do.
I think I now have a slight inkling of why the young english major from NYU had such a stricken look on his face when I told him I write in a blog from time to time. Perhaps it brought back memories of when he had been slapped with a dead fish. Perhaps he thought I was going to ask him to critique it. More likely, though, he was thinking, 'oh, no. not one of those again...'
0 comments:
Post a Comment