Fanfiction

So, I've recently gotten into reading fanfiction. About Harry Potter. I'm ashamed. I never thought I'd be one of those people. In fact, I have gotten so far in that I have actually thought about writing some, but I will resist! In fact, I'm going to try to stop reading it too. My problem with fanfiction is that it doesn't go anywhere. The people that write it are either mediocre people trying to make themselves feel special by piggybacking on someone else's success and talent, or they are talented people who are wasting their gifts on something that will hurt them more than it will help them by keeping them away from serious writing. It can be fun to read/write, don't get me wrong, but often times it's all about romance, turning the good ideas that make up the original author's story to the things of cheap paperback novels that fill the romance section of used bookstores. No offense meant to people who enjoy them, but no one can argue that such books are among the lowest forms of literature.

So you can read and write fanfiction if you want. I'm not denying the enjoyable aspects of the practice. To each his own. As for me, I think I'll try Shakespeare.

P.S. I'm not the only one who thinks so.

http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/is-fan-fiction-a-good-writing-practice-71953.html

He/She

So, I lied when I said that this blog would mostly be me asking myself questions and what-not. I'm going to rant a little.

Something that bugs me a lot is the new fad of trying to create sexual equality in grammar. Don't get me wrong. Equality is great. But not at the expense of bad writing or more inequality. What I'm referring to specifically is using he/she when the gender of the person you're writing about is unspecified. It used to be the rule that he was used in such cases. But now, people are abashed and aghast at the thought of doing this because it's unfair in some way and just supports the prejudices against women in this country. So we started trying to use she more. Mixing it up a little. Now, there are two things that end up happening when we try to "mix it up": 1) people end up using the he (or she), or he/she writing that is just tedious to read and distracts from what you're talking about, or 2) they end up using "she" all the time where "he" would have been used in different times, simply inverting the grammatical rule.

It's the last that I mainly have a problem with. When I'm reading something and the writer uses the "she", I find it distracting. But what annoys me more than that is that here you're trying to promote sexual equality, but what you're doing is firing the gun the other way. That is, now the sexism is aimed at men rather than women. It's a losing battle. You can't just take turns and switch between "he" and "she" either, because it would be way to confusing to read.

My solution to the problem? Make a new word if you care that much. There should be a new word made to encompass all genders in such a case where the gender is unspecified so that we don't have to worry about "he" or "she". We're using a generic word instead. And not "it", because that implies a particular gender as well, or at least eliminates male and female. You could use "glarbin" or "wa" or "ba". "A person can get a lot done if wa really cares enough to try." "Parents may not feel like feeding their child, especially if glarbin has been bad that day." "The natural instinct of a human is to take what ba wants." You get the general idea.

I Want...

I don't want to bore my readers with too much of an introduction, but it seems like it would be appropriate, since this is my first post. I'm not going to bore you with details. But for the sake of this blog, my name is Mrum. I have never ever thought about having a blog before, nor do I read them. This was completely spur of the moment. My posts are probably going to be me asking myself a lot of questions. I love playing devil's advocate with myself and others, so that's probably what this will be.

I got myself a bit down in the mouth a few nights ago by realizing that all human desires are the same. I don't want anything different than what the person next to me wants. I want freedom, he wants freedom. The old lady on the other side of town wants freedom. We want stability, and yet at the same time we want excitement. There are variations in what we want, but they are all basically the same.

We all want power. Do we? What about people who don't want to be president, who don't want to control people. What about people who just want to be left to themselves? I argue that these people want power just like the guy who wants to be president. No, I don't believe they're lying about wanting to be left alone. When I say that their desires for power don't differ, I'm speaking of the concept of power, not about the wanting to be president. Power is anytime we have control over something or hold some kind of authority over someone or something else. It's not a bad thing in itself. The person who wants to be left to himself (or herself) could be said to desire power over his own life; he (or she) desires the power to make his (or her) own decisions without the interference of someone else. That might not be his only motive, but it's certainly one of them. And it's not a bad thing either. Not a bad thing at all.

Another thing we all want is to be different from others. Individuality. This is what really got me depressed, because I do want to be different than other people. Yet we all want to stand out. Even if it's in little ways. The recluse feels that he's being different by shutting himself off from the world and the firefighter feels he's being different by saving people. They feel that they are making themselves more pronounced amongst all the people in the world by trying to do what others don't.

And yet people are so different. Why, when at our most basic levels we are so similar, are we so different? There are a number of responses that could be made to this question, but since we're on the topic of desires I'll make propose something from this particular area. We all have the same desires. But where they are directed and why is different. Two people who want power could want two completely different types of power, or power over two completely different things. I want power over my own life, I want power to influence people, I want the power to make people think, etc. Someone else might want these same types of power, but for different reasons and to different ends. It gets into the realm of motives (you could argue that motives and desires are the same, but for the sake of this rant, they are two related but different concepts).

Also, there are mixtures of desires and subgroups to these desires. For instance, everyone wants to be satisfied, but we don't all get satisfaction out of the same things. Thus we don't go searching for satisfaction in the same way. One person might get satisfaction out of excitement, which becomes a subgroup desire. So this person goes traveling. Another person is satisfied by music, so he composes a symphony. Contrariwise, people might have the same basic desire, have different subgroup desires, yet come to the same conclusion or action. For example, I'll use the person who gets satisfaction out of excitement, so goes traveling. Then another person comes along who gets satisfaction out of meeting new people, so they go traveling as well. You could also make the argument that these two people are both satisfied by excitement, but are excited by different things. But I don't want to wander too far. I'll just confuse myself and things would get too messy.

In conclusion, we all have the same basic desires, but we are so very different as individuals because of the details. Details are everything. It is these basic desires that tie us together as the human species. It's what makes civilization and culture possible. Granted, desires may not be the only thing binding us together as people. And it still doesn't make us happier by being so similar to one another. But in the end, if we didn't have similarities then it wouldn't matter if we were different.