~~ ranter without a cause. heh.

i kind of like being curmudgeony, but it certainly makes me feel... even more unreasonable than usual. disturbing, kind of, just how many things can annoy you once you set your mind to it. eep. most often, i can't even put my finger on it, and just bristle. 'course, usually i'm annoyed by pretention, stupidity, lack of taste and prejudice. but no, these are all related, so probably i'm still annoyed by that one thing. everyone knows people are stupid, but what no one tells you is that intelligent, discerning people are stupid too. there's really no escaping it-- and if everyone is stupid, the word loses its meaning, of course. not that i'm the arbitrer of stupidity or lack thereof, and as usual once you're not infatuated with something, it's a lot easier to see all the stupidities and fatuities in the system. oh yes, fatuity. so, so many people are guilty of it. shallow, lazy thinking passes for something worth giving a sneeze about every day. not that i'm setting myself somewhere above it and saying i'm better-- it annoys me anyway.
    repetition is a major culprit. for some reason, the concept of "let's say it again" holds this mass appeal, because, well, no one gets it the first time, and there are always new people, right, who haven't heard it before. we must do it for them. it's educational. that's why we try-- it's because we care. yes.

the problem is also just that i have this erroneous instinct to say, "well, people can tell -me- this, but i can't tell -them-". you can tell me i'm being stupid and lazy-thinking anytime. anytime. i will listen, i will try to understand, to see what i'm missing. i may not change my mind, but i would not get offended. i get this sneaking suspicion that i can't go around telling people they're talking crap. god, how that annoys me. and it's not even crap because it has no inherent value. it's crap because we've all heard it before, we all know it, there are better ways to say it again, and it's so purely self-indulgent and masturbatory as to discomfit even -me-, who is the mistress of self-indulgent masturbatory rhetoric.

( er. i think it might be best if i just had a better breakfast this morning, but. hey, ranting about nothing is good for the soul, everyone knows that. )

~~

it just occurred to me yesterday, in one of those flashes of pointless insight that mean nothing to anyone but me, that i find almost nothing as hateful as people proclaiming opinions as if they were fact.
    because no matter what you're saying, if you're that certain, you're too certain. you're blinded and in effect blind. you're lying to yourself and to your audience at the same time under the pretense of truth. rhetoric should be spoken within the confines of rhetoric-- in the style & format of an argument. rhetoric disguised as simple statement of accepted precepts insults the listener's intelligence and your own as the speaker.

this is probably the root of my huge bias towards "show-don't-tell" storytelling. as a storyteller, you're in the business of speaking the truth outfitted in lies. this is a delicate, subtle procedure, easy to mess up. all stories both are and aren't true, and the writer needs to be sensitive to the many gradations within that concept to be successful at really capturing the minds, hearts & imaginations of the audience.

    ( ... man, sometimes i just want to slap myself. like now. wake up, there's pr0n waiting for you, reena. yes. okay, i needed that -.- )