Let me start by saying that my heart goes out to the folks in Boston and China…last week was an obvious challenge for these people for a number of reasons. People died and that sucks…always, no matter what the reason, no matter what the country. Now, having said that, let me speak directly to some of you writers out there….you know who you are…the ones who are using these tragedies not to write…get over yourselves.
I don’t know how many blogs I came across last week that simply read stuff like, “Due to the tragedy in Boston, this column is delayed” or “In Honor of the People who Died in China, This Blog is Taking a Breather”…really? Do you really need ANY reason not to write?
Tragedy in our society is a way of life and, let’s be honest, if you really want to avoid writing you could literally find something to use every, single day. (And some writers do, hell, sometimes I do) In my opinion, and it is my opinion, a writer should be taking the alternative route and using the things that we face every day as a springboard to making some valid and important observations about our world. It has long been our lot in life to be the watchers, those who record history as opposed to those who record history as the politicians and those who need to spin it do. Today, thanks to the internet, we are more prominent than ever and more people read our words than ever before….do we really need to hide from our duties within an event that, by and large, needs to be acknowledged?
I didn’t post a column last week either but I had the flu. It had nothing to do with the events around the world and frankly, I would be ashamed to use those events as an excuse. Keep in mind, this column isn’t geared towards those writers who may have actually lost family members or friends in the Boston or China events, you guys get an obvious free pass, but if you live in Aloha, Washington (yes there is such a place) and you don’t even know anyone in those two places, yet you evoked the tragedies to skip a column…shame on you. We have a universal duty to those who aren’t communicators and as far as I am concerned, every time we use human strife as an excuse to shirk those duties, we are giving the universe the finger and you know what…that just sucks.
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