Saturday, June 4, 2011

We're all so predictable

I think it must have been the first, or one of the first episodes of 30 Rock--a show I just now started watching--where Jack can predict everything about a person just by determining which demographic group they fall into. And while he's talking to a woman roughly in my age group he mentions that she picks up knitting every two years, halfway completes a project, then puts it down again. How does he know us so well?

I mean, it's just so hard to know what to do. A couple of things come naturally to me--arguing, for one. Cooking is a no-brainer as everyone has to eat (although evidently there are many different ways of feeding oneself that permit a 30-year-old to make it their entire lives without having the faintest idea of when to put salt in boiling water, how to use sugar to reduce acidity or how you can use butter to emulsify a sauce).

Anyhootles. It occurs to me that only a rare few of us are naturally driven to do creative things, and of those, only an even smaller percentage have got any shred of talent. Anyone can knit, sure, but how many people can create a pattern? Anyone can write a blog, but how many people can write one worth reading? (Believe me, I'm not counting myself among the talented few in this regard... at the moment.) Anyone can pick up a pencil and paper, draw a circle and some squiggly lines and call it a cartoon, which is what I did today.

Boah, nothing illuminates you to your own total lack of talent like trying something new. In my head, the concept was genius, even though I had no idea what any of the characters would look like or how to make eyes. But I was determined to be more proactive in my artistic pursuits, so I sat down and pounded out some of the most inane drivel even I have ever seen and my standards are not that high.

Sigh... I wish I could figure out what I could do that would make me even remotely interesting, but it always seems to come back to my excellent powers of perseverance when it comes to arguing you down to a bloody pulp until you realize you are wrong, wrong, WRONG.

Anyway. It's back to watch ten more episodes of 30 Rock followed by a light marathon of Father Ted for me. Back into the masses of mediocrity I go.

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