seanessay.com From memory: There are a million ways to escape life, and only one way to face life—Jess Lair, Ph.D.
I guess we all can succumb, on occasion, to the time sink of going on the Web: Seeking to surf and distract through Twitter, Youtube and such. We all know there’s a fine line between entertainment and escape.
For me, my “escape” can feel like productive work, or mere perfectionism, or something, because my man hours spent editing and polishing my pretty little blog essays give me comforting hours of nice non-guilt. But still, deep down, I know: My time is not optimally productive. Well, at least I don’t do social media. Ya, but I do keep doing essays. I have tried to free up time by writing up lots of essays in advance. This week I even “started” to try to say I would only compose or edit my essays on the one-in-five days I post. But only “started,” because suddenly I remembered a drunk coming up with yet another crazy scheme to control drinking. No—If I try to kid myself then I am the one who is crazy. Or a drunk.
What I would like to do is compose fiction. Or so I claim. But like the man who keeps meaning to build a boat in his basement, or even get around to covering up those basement joists, I just keep not getting around to it. So do I really want to write fiction? (I really don’t want to cover the joists) Maybe. But I can’t know. Because maybe I’ve been kidding myself about doing fiction. Well, I’m ready to find out.
For poetry, when I first started my War of the Worlds poetry manuscript I was so scared, I had to get out of town to attempt a poem. Just like I still do once a year for income tax. I suppose making fiction must be as hard as composing a poem about taxes. If not, I would have tried it by now. (As I lift my pen to do my tax, I lay upon some torture racks) Anyways, it’s time to think big—and pause my blog.
How about that word “pause?” Now, when the experts said “pause” as in “they were going to pause AstraZeneca,” we nonscientists didn’t feel clear: To us, their word “pause” meant a big red button labeled STOP. This novel unclarity meant confusion, which meant anxiety. Then the calm scientists tried to “resume” their vaccine, but soon found that, because of the confusion, they needed to start educating. But I don’t think they succeeded. The public was not OK, even though we were OK for blood clots at a much, much higher rate for common drugs such as birth control pills—Ya, but those drugs had never been STOPPED.
Oops, see that last paragraph? It means I’ve enjoyed “essaying” again. See what I’m up against?
If I am to do any fiction, then I will surely have to take drastic measures, as in a drastic pause… Then what? Will readers “abandon” my site? No… because they haven’t “liked” it in the first place. That’s why after my fiftieth post I began braiding in Free Fall Friday posts, to see if folks prefer hasty lighter stuff to “heavy” thought-out stuff. (This is post 68)
Commonly, people hop onto my archive page, then hopefully they notice the six essays, (per page) then presumably they “decide” that zero out of six are worth clicking on, and then—just as I’m thinking Here comes company—“Polly put the kettle on,”—they hop away! “Sookie take it off again, they’ve all gone away.” Maybe if I “pause the blog”—for I don’t know how long— people will have time to click on an essay, or even to comment.
(Relax friends, unless you have a hand-made website, Sookie and I can’t tell who you are, only your nationality)
I love essay-writing, to be sure, while for fiction-writing my back is against the wall. Maybe I can be a hero in my own mind, by showing I’m not afraid, by singing, just as Pat Benatar and Buffy the vampire slayer do, “it’s do or die.”
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Sean Crawford
Bonus music videos, with the phrase “do or die”
Pat Benatar, with a video I remember looking forward to on MTV back in the day, with clips from the movie Legend of Billy Jean. Here’s a longer film analysis.
Buffy and the “Scooby gang” wondering why they are ensorcelled into singing. I once explained Anya’s terrible fear of bunnies, a fear I’m sure the vast majority of innocent viewers don’t understand, in my essay Death of Anya, posted (as is Death of Buffy) back in January 2021.
