Write about what you don’t know

I am acutely aware that I never seem to write about things that I know much about. The wry and cynical amongst you are, no doubt, already crafting wry and cynical reactions to that statement in your head, sticking me with little half-vocalized jabs – “that certainly doesn’t limit the topic very much,” etc. Everyone that’s ever been on the receiving end of an email alias for which I’ve been allowed send privileges, on the other hand, is rolling their (collective) eyes, memories of one of my melodramatic missives discovered in their inbox like a phonebook on a dew-covered doorstep in the morning. Heavy. Appearing mysteriously in the night. Full of words, but having no real point.

I will admit that some of this probably stems from my rebellion against those cliched words of wisdom so often espoused for aspiring writers, that they should “write about what you know.” You know what I think? That’s crap. People writing about “what they know” is the primary cause of me being subjected to the multitude of bland, self-indulgent, and plain played-out plays and movies about (what else?) a struggling writer living in New York City, or about an eccentric [actor | director | screenwriter | key grip] trying to make it in Los Angeles.

My advice to aspiring writers is: don’t take advice from me. I write to exercise parts of my brain that don’t get much use in my day job, not to advice anyone else on how to go about their business (and certainly not to entertain).

I used to have a friend with whom I would spend lunch breaks talking about all kinds of weird stuff. Then he died in a tragic accident involving camouflage pants, a blender, and one of those “green screens” they use for special effects and weather reports. Ha, ha. Of course that’s a joke. He’s still alive. But he may as well be dead, because I never talk to him because he moved to Milwaukee so he could hang out with other (apparently geographically-challenged) artist-types who want to spend their time making films and goofy art exhibits and generally prance around like life is supposed to be fun or something.

Anyhow, this friend, let’s call him “Bob,” because that’s really his name, was a good outlet for wacky ideas. We could riff on things like numberometries like a couple of stoned philosophy majors getting a dip of the professor’s stash, only we were stone sober on account of (1) having jobs, and (2) realizing that they don’t call it dope for nothin’. (Bobby has since descended deep into the artist community, so I’m not really sure number (1) still applies to him, and number (2) might be losing its force of argument, too.)

Sometimes we’d talk about less crazy topics, like gravity and tides, or regular expressions, or fashioning makeshift splints. And that’s fun to a certain point. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is rewarding and all, but after a while, when you get back to your office, you Google the stuff, and, yup, some guy spent 8 years getting his doctorate studying what you talked about over lunch, and more answers than you would ever want are available here and here and here.

It was a lot more fun to talk about stuff that we really didn’t know how in the hell it worked, and – more important – we’ll probably never know how it works. Because nobody knows.  That’s the kind of stuff that makes for interesting conversations, and sticks to your brain bones for a long time. That’s worth talking about.

But now that Bobby’s dead, it’s just me and my blog.