The Death of Creativity
It has now been 5 day since my last post and I feel that I am starting to draw a blank on what I will write about next.
I thought at first that once I had a blog the world would be my oyster and I will have hundreds of avid readers begging for the next post. I would have to write a book because that is what the fans will be clamoring for, and then riches would come pouring in. I would meet Oprah, maybe an appearance on Leno and then at the top of my game, Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
Alas no, as I sit here with maybe eight faithful readers, squirming in a crappy chair in our computer lab with nothing to write about. I have, what the experts call, writers block.
But has the world not come to this place as well? Have we not come to a global writers block? Has every thought been had already?
I have began to wonder if that might not be true. Everything we watch has been done before and this is very evident in Hollywood where every movie is a re-make or a sequel or a 70's TV show. This can not be true - creativity can not be dead - but it looks more and more that way.
When we were kids we didn't have a thousand TV channels and really had to come up with things to do on our own. I spent days in the yard, especially in the sandbox dreaming of every game I could, every scenario I could, and every way to bury ants and watch them dig free I could, and that was bliss to me. That was my childhood utopia.
Then the world took the need to have an imagination away. The world gave us more and more TV, better videogames and consoles, and then kids no longer had the fend for themselves. Kids no longer needed an imagination because TV took them everywhere. Then those kids become the young executives of today putting bad crap on TV with no invention, no unique qualities, no creativity, and those that try are cancelled quickly because they can not find an audience.
And today we suffer for it...
Reality TV, FOX News, endless sequels, movie remakes, and the dreaded bio-pictures. Rarely does something come out that has true creativity. And then I sit here...
I have nothing to write about. I am empty and can not think of something unique of my own to write in my blog. I can only hope that the future is better, that my mind will break free of this torment, that I will again have a thought of my own but until then...
Did any one watch "Fear Factor" yesterday?
I thought at first that once I had a blog the world would be my oyster and I will have hundreds of avid readers begging for the next post. I would have to write a book because that is what the fans will be clamoring for, and then riches would come pouring in. I would meet Oprah, maybe an appearance on Leno and then at the top of my game, Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
Alas no, as I sit here with maybe eight faithful readers, squirming in a crappy chair in our computer lab with nothing to write about. I have, what the experts call, writers block.
But has the world not come to this place as well? Have we not come to a global writers block? Has every thought been had already?
I have began to wonder if that might not be true. Everything we watch has been done before and this is very evident in Hollywood where every movie is a re-make or a sequel or a 70's TV show. This can not be true - creativity can not be dead - but it looks more and more that way.
When we were kids we didn't have a thousand TV channels and really had to come up with things to do on our own. I spent days in the yard, especially in the sandbox dreaming of every game I could, every scenario I could, and every way to bury ants and watch them dig free I could, and that was bliss to me. That was my childhood utopia.
Then the world took the need to have an imagination away. The world gave us more and more TV, better videogames and consoles, and then kids no longer had the fend for themselves. Kids no longer needed an imagination because TV took them everywhere. Then those kids become the young executives of today putting bad crap on TV with no invention, no unique qualities, no creativity, and those that try are cancelled quickly because they can not find an audience.
And today we suffer for it...
Reality TV, FOX News, endless sequels, movie remakes, and the dreaded bio-pictures. Rarely does something come out that has true creativity. And then I sit here...
I have nothing to write about. I am empty and can not think of something unique of my own to write in my blog. I can only hope that the future is better, that my mind will break free of this torment, that I will again have a thought of my own but until then...
Did any one watch "Fear Factor" yesterday?
posted by Duncan McAllister at 8:22 p.m.
7 Comments:
I believe your writer's block is good news indeed --yessiree good news indeed. Cyril
Ouch..That hurts.
Just my attempt at low brow humour Duncan -- sorry if you took it personally. Your admirer -- Cyril
Who are you Cyril? Very curious admirer
-- Lola.
All good Cyril - If nothing else it made me laugh.
Cyril sounds like my dad (minus the typos). I don't think it's him, but I wouldn't put it past him. In any case, I'm enjoying Cyril's smack talk.
To the post...and the "has everything been thought of already" question.
I think many of us have unwittingly given up on trying to think. So if there are fresh new ideas out there, not many of us are trying.
If I get bored I play PS2 or watch the Apprentice. I certainly don't ponder philisophical questions, or even moral dilemmas.
I can't remember the last time I sat in a quiet room and thought about something...anything for a long period of time.
Too much clutter in my life, and I'm not sure I could focus for long enough if I felt like it!
"Everything we watch has been done before"
Probably true, but that assumes creativity is an output. Creativity is really a process. That process is and always has been taking from the past and making it feel new again by taking the best parts, getting rid of the worst parts, and essentially making a remix.
That's pretty much the whole basis for hiphop, both the rapping and the music. It's very heavily referrential, heavily dependent on samples. It got a little ridiculous with "producers" taking a whole song from the 90s (!) and adding a drum loop to it, but then you get stuff like the Grey Album where a DJ takes the vocal track from Jay-Z's Black album, then takes the Beatles' White Album, chops it up into its constituent parts, then adds some phat hiphop beatz and makes a whole new record out of two other albums.
The only way to beat writers' block is to read a lot and copy your favourite writers' styles. The whole myth about writing or anything else creative is that you have to be original. Nobody's going to change the game these days (well, Dizzee Rascal is changing the game of rap, but that's beside the point), so it's a matter of changing the style of how the game is played.
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