i lost my funny.
Posted by Ryan on April 8th, 2006
I’m on a plane as I write this. Yes… Write. I did not crack open a laptop or a PDA with some newfangled roll-out keyboard. No pocket or tablet PC enabled this post. I actually thought it might be a bit therapeutic to compose a post (or a rough draft anyway) by throwing back to the old pen and ink.
It turns out to not be therapeutic at all. It just cramps my hand. A couple years of keyboard usage has strengthened some of my hand muscles while the others - the writing ones - have slowly atrophied. Seriously, I started cramping after the first couple sentences. It’s pathetic. But I’m pressing on…
To be honest, the last time I handwrote this much of my thoughts I was on the plane home from my mission closing out my two year, sporadically kept journal. That was four years ago.
In that four years I have had exactly:
7 Residences
6 Jobs
5 Cell Phones
4 Credit Cards
3 Cars
2 Blogs
1 Wife
0 Kids (This last statistic has been nagging at me a bit lately and I am starting to think it is a “situation” that needs remedying, but that is an issue for another post.)
The problem with what these life experiences represent…err.. strike that.
The problem with how I have handled what these life experiences represent is I have let them turn me a bit solemn in my writing. I have been robbing our readership, burying my talents. You see, as I have thought about my mission journal, I have realized that my entries were quite funny and satirical, yet somehow the message, my feelings as I wrote, and the import of the struggles I faced, at least in retrospect, were not diminished by my jokes. (I’ll post some of them in the near future so you can see what I mean.)
What I’m getting at is: I write humor much better than most of the rants that I have been forcing lately. I think my “sham of symbols” post was the peak of my nonsense whining. That’s why I’m not including a hyperlink to the post. You’ll have to find it for yourself if you are interested in such masochism. I guess what happened was, I felt the pressure to keep up with Times and Seasons and BCC and the many other highly intellectual blogs both in quality and quantity. In the end I accomplished neither.
Anyway, my apologies. I am going to fix my writing. Not in the way you would fix a dog though, that would be a bit macabre and probably distracting. I mean fix my writing so it is more like “me” and less like “them”. I’ll still mix in some scholarship, but spacing the scholarly posts out a bit more in between the light-heartedness will allow me to spend more time researching my posts and less time staking wild claims where fools gold is plentiful.
So brace yourself, here comes the funny. (Hmm. Did I just announce how funny I think I am? Talk about an egotistical build-up of expectations. I might as well have announced how handsome and virile I am shortly before posting a picture of myself taken after getting drug out into a back alley and being beaten by the ugly stick for a couple of hours. I’m such an idiot. My apologies to my co-bloggers.)
Now that you mention it. I used to “pride” myself on my humor as well, but lately, I can’t find it either. Where in the world can it be?
Comment # 1 left by Ian on April 8th, 2006
Ryan how about you write JCL first then become funny? Look man we both want millions and I just don’t care enough to do it. Make a goal to right one chapter for every 2 posts you do. Also I not sure that you were ever funny in the first place.
Comment # 2 left by Eric on April 8th, 2006
for those of you who don’t get the abrreviation JCL.. don’t worry about it. It’s too long and too boring a story to tell.
Eric: Stop wasting time on this “internet” thing and go back to more the more productive stuff you normally do. Like World of Warcraft
Comment # 3 left by Ryan on April 9th, 2006
Hey! my last comment seems to have disappeared. If this double comments I am sorry.
So, it appears there is another Eric. Weird.
Ryan. There is a great quote from a movie called ‘My Blue Heaven’ where a Steve Martin character says ‘everybody thinks they have a sense of humor, even people who don’t’. We shall see.
Your humor shows through. I look forward to more of it. I find that as I grow older I sometimes have to remind myself to have fun.
Comment # 4 left by Eric on April 9th, 2006
Nice post, I say let loose! You’re a pretty funny guy…a definite talent of yours.
As for fixing your writing like you would fix a dog. I agree; it would be distracting, but I don’t know exactly how you could fix writing in that manner. When you figure it out, let me know; I’ve got a few writers on law review who could use a “quick fix”.
Comment # 5 left by Wade on April 9th, 2006
This post has been removed by the author.
Comment # 6 left by My Dominion on April 10th, 2006
Funny… Ryan… No he just ruins my fun. There is nothing funny about him. And as far as JCL is concerned I think you could write an entire post just on that.
Comment # 7 left by My Dominion on April 10th, 2006
Dominion:
This is not the first time you’ve alleged Ryan ruins your fun. So, exactly how is that he accomplishes the ruining of your fun? I’d be interested to hear your insights.
Concerning JCL, is this the book Ryan has been cooking up for a while?
Comment # 8 left by Wade on April 10th, 2006
“I felt the pressure to keep up with Times and Seasons and BCC and the many other highly intellectual blogs both in quality and quantity.”
We all feel it, but in any creative pursuit if you model your efforts after someone else’s, then in the end all you have is a copy which relies on the original and has no roots of strength of its own. One of the true values of blogging comes in that it preserves the myriad voices of the writers by bypassing the editorial web involved in the bottom-line driven print publishing world.
So, sing it your way, and it will be better, truer, and stronger.
Comment # 9 left by Naiah Earhart on April 11th, 2006
One of the true values of blogging comes in that it preserves the myriad voices of the writers by bypassing the editorial web involved in the bottom-line driven print publishing world.
Naiah: I like this point about blogging; I agree. The drive for conformity from the “editorial web” sucks the life out of contemporary writing.
Comment # 10 left by Wade on April 11th, 2006
Dominion:
I was going to try to stop ruining your fun but then I realized that ruining your fun is like walking on a tropical island beach at sunset with warm ocean water gently lapping at a soft white sand beach while a cool evening breeze softly blows through my hair and the gentle sounds of the local south pacific fauna traipses ever so slightly through the salty air….
Sorry I guess I got carried away there.. I meant to just say that ruining your fun makes me happy.
Comment # 11 left by Ryan on April 11th, 2006
Guys!
I was just checking in on recent comments and I see that your sitemeter says 4,999–you’re about to break 5k!!! That’s *awesome*!!!!
I almost want to shuffle my IP and click over again. hahaha! Congrats!
Comment # 12 left by Naiah Earhart on April 14th, 2006