The Politics of Life

Like most everyone else, I have some pet peeves. Some are rather silly, some are a bit more justifiable. I can’t stand being late to anything, though it happens more often than I’d care to admit. I don’t like being dropped off somewhere without the car being put into park. I don’t understand why people have to get in the middle of the aisle in a store and stop to look at everything. Furthermore, I can’t go to the grocery store with anyone who likes to look for a while (my grandma spoiled me of that due to numerous afternoons spent in Jack Brown’s down in Franklinton), but I don’t like to be rushed in a book store.

This brings me to my latest pet peeve — drama. Over the last few months, I’ve enjoyed being a part of an online reading group. I missed that sensation of reading something with other people and getting together to discuss it. It was fun (though I’m sure there are some who wouldn’t find so much pleasure in reading presidential biographies). Sadly, like all things, it had its time, and now I’m a solo reader again. The reason? Drama. A rather complicated, ridiculous story of drama, online politics, and people with too much time on their hands turning the simple act of reading a book as a group and discussing it into some huge ordeal. I’m toying with the idea of starting up my own group with one simple rule — no drama. However, right now I’m still hurt that a simple pleasure, something that I found myself looking forward to, was ruined because people live on drama, something that I abhor and have never understood. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I expect too much of people — civility, cordiality, communal learning. However, for the life of me, I can’t understand why something so seemingly simple has to be so complicated. I’m reading a memoir of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright now. In it, she talks about the lonliness that comes with being different, for her, a combination of being of foreign origin and having a thirst for learning at an early age. I know I won’t always feel this way, but right now, I feel very alone in my intellectual quest.

A confession

I have something to confess, dear readers. I have a fear of writing non-fiction. There, the cat’s out of the bag. Now, I know some people are going to call shenanagans since I’ve been blogging off and on for a long time, but in my mind, blogging something’s different. It’s quick and dirty. It doesn’t have to be polished and refined, though I usually do a read-through one time before posting. Also, it feels cathartic most of the time, like I’m getting something off of my chest (case in point, this post). With non-fiction, my stumbling block seems to be that I feel I have to get things just right so that I can’t really have fun with it. It feels like it’s got to have more of a purpose and it’s got to properly inform readers of something. I’m not sure if it’s my fear of failure that’s holding me back mixed in with my desire to always be perfect or if it’s because it feels that non-fiction is designed for someone else while fiction writing is mainly for my own pleasure. Whatever the case may be, I’m making an effort to overcome my fear and write more non-fiction for a time, just to see how it goes. Over the years, I’ve been told by numerous friends that I need to try my hand at non-fiction, and I’ve always resisted. I’ve finally decided to give in. I don’t know exactly yet what I’ll be writing, but we’ll cross that bridge.