Rift

So I wonder where creative ideas come from as a creative person. It still really baffles me.

Last night I decide I want to do some writing, so I'm listening to some music and sort of trying to get myself in a particular mind space. What I'm trying to decide is which of the two books, that I'm currently really invested in, will I work on. But what happens instead is while I'm watching a music video on Youtube I get a new story idea. This idea is just a whisper and an aesthetic. Colors and settings. Lighting and mood. A small and tenuous voice.

I tell myself no. I am not allowed to start another narrative. What I have right now in my brain is about eight different narrative voices. All separate and all unique. Four of these voices belong to one book while the remaining four belong to their own separate books.

So what happens is the voice will not get out of my head. It starts with a line, something about falling away from someone and as they recede being welcomed into a new world. Death really but in a way that's not so heavy or pretentious. This voice won't leave my head and as I sat there last night I felt almost forced to open a new clean file and to begin the narrative. I write five pages of text, find a working title that I actually enjoy and end up sniping a character name from one of the current projects that I was looking forward to using, may still use I guess.

But how does this happen? Why am I as a writer always compelled to create new characters and worlds, especially at a time when my focus is already spreading thin over the ideas I'm currently trying to nurture?

This narrative isn't going anywhere anytime soon I don't think. It's just a sketch of something, but what I know is that it won't leave my head. I will think about it. I will move it's parts around until slowly I end up building a world with lore and history and the character will present themselves to me as undeniable.

So this makes nine narrative voices.
All with histories.
All with preferences.
All with beating hearts and grasping greedy hands.

I was thinking how silly but true it is that my brain space is sort of like the Mii channel on the Wii. Little characters wandering around aimless waiting for me to pick them up and put them to use.

I know that my habitual idea creation will someday be my single greatest strength as an author, but god damned it's making this start up so slow and chaotic.

Netflix please stop removing streaming TV shows that are awesome.

Netflix has a dating app on their site.

And I guess this is really where we're at anyways right? I mean most everyone is really pretty much the same, we are all of us just borderline crazy and some of us fully fledged. We do essentially the same sorts of things with ourselves all day long. So I guess other then hottness, a pretty good indication of who you'd like to be with would be someone who you won't argue endlessly with about which movie you want to watch.

It might be shallow to think in these terms but really why? Why are we so important as to not care about things like this?

I have a very good convenience in my relationship in that we both tend to think the same awesome things are awesome, minor discrepancies. It's the longest relationship I've been in and I have to wonder, if we were polar opposites in the entertainment area would we have lasted this long? I say this because we watch a lot of TV, and read books and talk about them, and listen to music together, I think most all couples have this. And so after you've been with someone for so long and know so much about them, then doesn't it just come down to the question: Can we agree on what sucks and whats awesome?

We like people, we like good looking people, people who are funny. But I really think more than any of that, we just like people who like the things we like. Where does this come from? Outside of the practical matter of sharing the experience together, why do we enjoy sharing things with people and watching them enjoy it? I mean if it's something we didn't really have a hand in making. Is it a self affirmation thing, like if you like the band that I like then my opinion matters and is valid because it's shared?

The one and only time I'm likely to talk about sports

I was watching basketball today.

I don't like it, but I get it. I understand that it's enjoyable to watch people who are really talented at something do it, and then to see them do it well.

I understand liking something, like a sport, not being any good at it yourself, then having that personal fault allow you to appreciate all that much more when people do it amazingly. I play the guitar, I am mediocre, I will never be considered a great guitar player. So when I see someone who can shred like their entire existence was built around doing that, it floors me.

But what I don't get, will never get, is team loyalty. Specifically college team loyalty.

I understand being into a specific aesthetic. I get it when you root for the home team because you feel it may represent you in some small way. But the kind of brand loyalty sports teams have garnered is almost incomprehensible to me. It overrides logic in most cases. To say you hate a team because of the coach? To say you hate a team because other people hate it? To be so connected to a team of people you don't know, have never met, are unlikely to meet, and then to know so little about those people other then their career stats? I mean I guess that's it, a lot of people are just obsessing over a stat machine.

Ask someone about their favorite sports team, then ask about the players they really like, then ask them what they know about that player. I really can't imagine too many people will be able to say anything more then stats. It seems the players themselves are really only there to get the numbers and as long as someone is getting the numbers then it doesn't matter who that person is.

This thought really occurred to me when I made the comment to my dad that the game, that was intensely close, was more enjoyable because of it. And he didn't agree. He wanted his team to be in the lead by an amount of points that made losing a marginal chance. And, look, I can get that it's very interesting to see a team be so good they just shut the other team down. But I honestly believe that a lot of sports fans would agree, they want their teams to always shut the opponents down. But how is that enjoyable? If you knew the outcome of the game would you still enjoy watching it? Isn't that the whole point of competition? That there is actually some competing going on?

I thought the game today was great. The outcome was decided by two points made in the last twenty seconds of the game. That to me is the absolute definition of competition. Two teams that played so closely together that the viewer literally had no idea how it was going to turn out.

What I'm really curious about I guess is: Is the win more important then how the competition went down?

I don't know a lot about sports, or the experience of being a major fan, so I'm not sure how valid any of my impressions are, but this is what I'm thinking about today. What do we like about competition, and why do we like it?

All Hail, The New Land!

Hello internet.

First blog posts are weird, huh?
Sort of like first dates, maybe.

I might say something I regret. I will think about it none stop afterwords, did I make a good impression?

More importantly is that you, dear blog, are coming into this world new, alone. Birthed in the depths of the internet's all encompassing mechanism. I found you quivering for warmth in the darkness and I welcomed you into my life. Welcomed you along for my pilgrimage.

So for now it's just me and you, you wide eyed curiosity. You endless well of potential.

Let's discover the world around us and explore the massive swell of people that pulse inside this thing they call the internet.