I thought Facebook was a wasteland. Then I discovered Twitter.
I’m now at over 7,000 tweets and I can’t say anything much in my life has changed, except I’m a little older, and perhaps more convinced that the human race is irreversibly beyond redemption. It’s increasingly evident that it’s just a matter of time before we are overwhelmed by our own irrelevance and dissipate like cigarette ash in a typhoon.
But this is the time of the year to gaze back with weepy sentimentality and try to milk the last twelve months for everything good and wonderful. Thus I will try to look on the bright side of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent trying to be clever and witty, in order to attract the attention of the ADHD Twitter community.
Not that this justifies the enormous squander, or represents anything like a reward for all of this pointless effort, I will say I have mastered the art of the text bite. After spending all of my life aspiring to both a deep appreciation of and a level of adroitness with my mother tongue, I have traitorously spurned the English language as a tool for profundity, majesty, nuance, beauty, splendor, power, discovery, insight, grace, and learned to say something — albeit of highly dubious value — using only 140 characters. I don’t know if I should weep and hang my head in shame, or puff up my chest, hook my thumbs in my imaginary blue suspenders, and smile as if conclusive proof has finally just been made public, that yes indeed, Hillary Clinton is a man, as I’ve been saying all along.
Whatever the case, some of my 140 character compositions have done better than others. ‘Done’ means gained acceptance, even acclaim. So here, based on how many times they were “retweeted” or “favorited”, are some of the more popular verbal excretions that I oozed into the swirling torrent of Twitter burble over the past year.
PHILOSOPHY, CREATIVITY AND RANDOM HUMOR
To a hammer everything looks like a thumb.
There are many roads to the truth but they all end up in the same place.
A candid look at a day in the life of a writer. http://jdrachel.com/?p=5728
Creating memorable characters. http://jdrachel.com/?p=5765
Writing poetry. http://jdrachel.com/?p=5797
Canadians are scary! http://jdrachel.com/?p=927
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx
POLITICS
Rationalization is the evil step-brother of rationality.
These arrived without my consulting a burning bush. http://jdrachel.com/?p=5679
Broccoli Is Free Speech and Tractors Are Persons. http://jdrachel.com/?p=4135
From Bill To Hillary With Love http://jdrachel.com/?p=4942
“THE MAN WHO LOVED TOO MUCH”
The boycott of my new novel is a 100% success.
Eat your heart out Marcel Proust. Bleccch!
No one drowns or is decapitated.
No diseased spider monkeys.
In this novel, S&M is a thrift store.
Water boarding is not surfing.
No can of beer left behind.
Detroit…where attitude means survival.
Stoicism is not the same as a coma.
No vampire breath spores.
No faeries or zombie debutantes.
No injectable transgendering nano-robots.
No neural-net proto-spiders from outer space.
No secret covens of neo-Nazi Wiccan cheerleaders.
No self-assembling world-destroying kitchen appliances.
No Angelina Jolie doppelgängers.
I actually thought my book was a pile of garbage.
What is it about men? What is it about women?
“11 – 11 – 11”
I write trivial garbage to clutter the world with nonsense.
Makes great kindling for your Kindle!
Great deal! Only .00001031 cents per word! Less than the price of one of Kim Kardashian’s brain cells.
Unclutter your mind. Pulp fiction as a brain laxative.
“12 – 12 – 12”
If I get 1,000,000 likes for my video, I win a lifetime supply of kettle corn!
If I get 1,000,000 likes for my video I win two front row seats at a Carly Rae Jepsen concert!
Life is what you make it, with what you can manage to borrow.
Coming to a bathroom wall near you.
“BLINDERS KEEPERS”
Everything makes sense except when it doesn’t.
Even when the cookie crumbles, you can still eat the crumbs.
“Blinders Keepers” is to politics what macrame is to string theory.
The greatest work of literature since Valley of the Dolls!
“AN UNLIKELY TRUTH”
Blessed are the blissfully blank.
There is strength in numbers and only weakness in apathy.
The fool hears silence where the wise man beholds the roar of an epiphany.
This is the stuff people thought was worthy of the 7 milliseconds of time it took for them to point and click their approval? Granted, some of it is cute.
And, like a little kid standing on the coffee table in the living room dancing and mugging in a frenetic attempt to get everyone’s attention, I appreciate any pleasant nod in my direction.
Nevertheless, I’ve arrived at a profound epiphany in terms of social media.
I just don’t get it.
Imagine
Before I go on, let me say that I too find it beautiful, inspiring, ennobling, a truly remarkable and timeless creation. I’m thoroughly enchanted by its haunting melody, totally respect and resonate with the intent, the pure sentiment, the message — as I do Lennon’s equally powerful “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”
So what follows is not criticism of the song per se, but more of an attempt to build on it — find within its deeper implications something productive and enlightening — my shot at taking it to a new level of appreciation.
Let’s be honest. “Imagine” is an anarchist anthem. It recommends us picturing a world which has . . .
No Heaven
No Hell
No countries
No religion
No possessions
Throw in ‘no television’ and ‘no money’ and we’re grunting savages back in a cave.
He opens the song with . . .
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
I have mixed feelings about ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’. There are many among us who have trouble imagining there is a heaven, at least as some religions characterize it.
I’m not sure imagining heaven pro or con in a literal sense is the issue.
And looking at it more as a metaphor, I think we spend most of our waking lives thinking about some ideal state, some level of perfection where the challenges and hardships of our lives would go away. We all dream of a utopia, a Nirvana, at least a better version of what we have. I think it’s wired into us and is what drives humankind to its most admirable achievements. Why would we want to give that up?
Having said that, the next line is enigmatic. ‘It’s easy if you try’.
Try?
As if we weren’t already trying? That’s practically all we do. We live in fantasy worlds of our own creation or ones conveniently foisted on us from others usually with an agenda. People constantly live in their imaginations, fancying better looks, sexier more attractive bodies, more interesting friends, finer possessions, better jobs, nicer homes, cooler cars. We are, it seems, already engaged in a nearly pathological level of “imagining”, one which has dissipated our sense of self, submerged our individual identities, often caused a sense of alienation from others, and created unimaginable levels of uncertainty and insecurity. Sometimes when I listen to people talk or look objectively at what occupies a generous portion of their time — television, movies, sporting events — I wonder if they aren’t completely divorced from the real world, even when they appear to be engaged.
If anything, we could be accused of trying too hard, imagining too much. You might more reasonably argue maybe we spend too much time imagining many of the wrong things.
So the question is: Is what this song recommends an improvement?
Imagine there’s no countries
Imagine no possessions
Nothing to kill or die for
No religion too
Okay . . . gone is heaven, hell, countries, religion, possessions.
What do we replace these with? There has to be something. We can’t live in a void.
I recognize he’s saying we should try to imagine ourselves in an alternative better world. But there’s a reason we don’t imagine a world without countries and possessions. There’s a reason we don’t imagine a world where there’s nothing to kill or die for. I believe . . .
IT’S BECAUSE WE CAN’T!
I would defend with my life those I love and respect. My wife. My daughter. My friends.
Yes, I would kill and die for them.
Is this bad?
People can’t imagine a world without possessions. I don’t know if they seriously try or not. I do know it’s not worth the effort.
It’s not the possessions that are evil. It’s what the possessions do to us and those around us. It’s when the possessions “possess” us, when one person’s ownership deprives others of basic survival or dignity that they become toxic.
Similarly with countries. Humans by nature are both social and tribal. We achieve a sense of communal worth and purpose by belonging to a people, a clan, an extended family, even a nation. It gives us identify and comfort. I don’t think humans are capable of viewing themselves otherwise.
I believe that in and of itself is not bad. It becomes threatening and destructive when it crushes our sensitivity to others who are not in our tribe, when it convinces us that “we” are somehow more special or more important than “them”. America’s obsession with its exceptional role on the planet, rising above all other nations, is an example of national identification and healthy pride becoming a dangerous, sociopathic affliction.
It is not the lack of imagining or lack of imagination that plagues us. It is attempting to imagine the wrong things, or things that go against our essential nature.
Plus, I would start small. If successful, we can work our way up.
Here are just a few things to get us up and running:
Imagine everyone being free of illness and disease.
Imagine everyone having clothing and a decent place to live.
Imagine being kind to others, even those we don’t understand.
Imagine treating everyone equally, with dignity and compassion.
Imagine being honest with ourselves and others.
Imagine cooperation instead of competition.
These are things not only we can imagine, but things that can actually be done.
It’s easy if you try
Having said all of this — and I know I’ve probably trampled on some sacred ground — I still think that “Imagine” is one of the most beautiful and important contributions a pop artist has ever made to the world. Let’s enjoy it for its purity of spirit and honesty.