The Tyranny of Self-Help Books

I haven't read Barbara Ehrenrich's new missive "Bright-Sided" quite yet but her recent interview on Jon Stewart got me thinking about the disastrous implications of a nation bent on "positive thinking." It reminds me of conversations I've had with random strangers; conversations that somehow inevitably remind me that my thoughts are outside the realm of normal, productive thoughts. There's a subtlety to this way of talking to someone. And I don't even think that people are always aware that they're exerting an aggressive force on my thoughts. It can be as simple as telling me "well, maybe you might also want to think about your blessings," or when, after explaining to someone something that's just happened, getting the response, "oh, but don't you think that's good?" But how can something be "good" without making something else "bad"? I'm aware, at this point, that I most likely sound like a confused moral relativist obliquely trying to explain a general concept most folks on this earth find mildly annoying and nonetheless put up with, but I'm trying to get at the root of a problem so huge that it's actually making my writing life quite impossible.

I'm quite aware that the average blog is filled with the inevitable "writer's block" post where the author attempts to explain their lack of recent posts, or perhaps attempts to gloss it all over by saying something like "oh, I was just really busy," but I tend to believe (and you can shout at me about this later) that no writer is ever too busy to write, unless we're purposefully making ourselves busy (God, I sound like a self-help book already). And I'm convinced the reason I haven't been writing is because of some vague thought that some things out there are bad, and some things out there are good, and in order to write things that are good, you just have to be really, really aware of really huge creative missteps like being a huge cliche.

And while I agree with people who say that we think in cliches, and we act based on cliches and our lives are sometimes simply huge cliches ("You sound too much like an English major!" "You sound too gay!" "You're writing is just. so. JEWISH!") and that this is somehow HORRIBLY HORRIBLE BAD, I've been starting to think that cliches are frikkin' unavoidable, and it is simply total hooey to think otherwise. Cliches are ideas and thoughts that we sometimes have to expose and share (even in grandoise fashions) to get out of our systems. Writing in cliches might even be necessary. Much like there's no save-all self-help book that will tell us how to get rich through positive thinking, there's no imaginary guidebook to writing something great, and no soul who could say (without lying) that they know what art is best.

I am a huge cliche. You wanna know how? I'll tell you how. I'm a gay man and I'm Jewish and I'm middle class and so everything I create could somehow be labeled "gay Jewish middle class art" and that's somehow a cliche. I'm sure it is. I'm sure there is someone out there who could peg me. Maybe I'm even afraid of a moment like this (cue to :25). But it is really ridiculously silly to believe that there's some huge asshole out there who is ready and even has the energy to tell you you're a total cliche because of something you wrote. These people exist, sure. And I think the internet has made all of us far too aware of them. But they are not the ideal audience, not a typical audience and not the kind of people any of us should ever want in our heads.

I'm going to try to accomplish a big huge thing right now and say that one of the reasons online writing sucks is because I think we're writing to please those jerks. They're out there, sure. They're fucking everywhere. And they hate you for writing, hate your ideas, hate your tastes, and will gladly tell you how and why you're a huge cliche because of something you wrote on your blog. But you know what? Pandering to them is fucking ridiculous. When you pander to them, you end up with shitty copy you can't even defend. The race to call bullshit on things you're not even sure is bullshit, the race to come up with the most contrarian opinion, and the fear of ending up somewhere that's too earnest, too genuine, and too "divulgey" has made a lot of us total wimps.

I'm not saying everyone should be forcing themselves to reveal their innermost thoughts online if they're not comfortable with doing so. I'm not even sure if I'm saying that something like this is bad or good (here comes the tyranny of self-help books), but I think the race to label thoughts as cliche or not forces a lot of us into the shadows for fear that we're actually living someone else's life and parroting someone else's tastes. Things, in fact, are a lot more complicated than that.

Okay. I think I'm done yelling. I feel like I just wrote a manifesto for the vaguest art movement ever ("Write what you want to write and don't listen to the internet!") But you know what? If that's what you want to think, I'm not going to stop you. Perhaps the secret is to give up on your audience. So: fuck off. (I love you).