November 30, 2005
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I don't know how Nathaniel Hawthorne did it. He isolated himself from the rest of society in order to further enhance his writing abilities. I tried taking the guy's advice for the past month and, you know, it was pretty much completely ineffective. How can you write about life, write about life experiences, vent in general if you aren't even out there living your life? What are you venting about? What's left in your life to discuss? You are a hermit, one who criticizes society without possessing the guts to actually, truly take part in it and make a difference. Complain, that's what you do. Complain. Bitch and moan. Wahh wahhh, boo hoo, the world sucks, people suck, I'm so glad I'm not a part of that disgusting thing everyone calls humanity. You are, as Pink Floyd has said all too well, a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl year after year. All you have are your thoughts flowing around in your mind and a tendency to stare off into space. No love, no friends. You drift around, living in those thoughts of yours, in that bowl of muck and water, staring and scowling at what exists past those transparently thick walls that trap you, greeting anyone who dares walk by with angry, furious fists of rage. And that's great, that's great and all. If that's how you want to live your life. But guess what, guppy? When it all comes down to it, fishes just swim in their own shit.
Diary Entry By Nathaniel Hawthorne, November 30th, 1850
Dear Diary,
My mom kicked me out of the house today. "Get some friends, Natie," she said, "You're forty-five years old for crying out loud." So, now I'm homeless. And I also hate humanity. Puritans should be burned at the stake. At least I know really big words and can say things like Thy and Thou and Dost. Real men say Dost. Dost is the axe effect of literature. Just throw a Dost into a crowded street and the ladies start swooning and being all like Ohhh Natie H! However, I've never seen a crowd of people in my entire life, so I just made that up. Sometimes, all you really need in life are thirty years worth of complaints, your mother's house, and a handful of imaginary friends.
Anyway, I'm going to go eat a squirrel.
Nathaniel.
For me, writing is not life, life is writing. Kind of like how an enzyme is a protein, but a protein isn't always an enzyme. Kind of like how I have to incorporate anything I currently have a test on into my journal entries. I need to be out there living my life in order to be inspired to write something. It's just too bad I don't exactly have one.
Comments (3)
Thoreau answered it, "How vain it is to sit to write when you have not yet stood up to live."
-HH
I can't tell you how much I wish I knew you in real life. Then we could be friends. As it is, I'll just have to be hopelessly jealous of your writing skills and insights from the other side of cyber space.
S
Sure you have a life. You have Hillary Madeline Barr (if that is her real name)and I'm sure tons of other people that you party with. There are the high speed drag races, keg parties, beach camp outs with hunky surfer guys, hiking trips through Europe, dance clubs, winter vactions in Aspen, red convertable sports cars, your acting career, sky diving, bungie jumping, and all sorts of other things that I'm sure most teenage girls do for fun, so don't pretend that you don't have a life Daryl.
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