I write one of these blog entries every day.
(Well, not literally. I write three or four at a time, and I publish them
online so that one appears every day.)
I’ve been keeping it up for almost three years. A page (more
or less) a day, for three years. Yikes!
I do not limit myself. I write about politics, and movie reviews,
and personal reminiscences. Sometimes I just ruminate. I write about botany and astronomy. I write about whatever comes to mind.
But am I creating
anything? I don’t know.
I have turned out reams of stuff. Is any of it new? Or
valuable? Or worthwhile?
Or original?
Apollonia, my colleague and nemesis, reminds me constantly
that my conversation is nothing but quotations. I quote “Seinfeld.” I quote
“The Simpsons.” I quote Woody Allen movies, and Walt Whitman, and Tolstoy, and
J. K. Rowling.
Which makes me wonder: is every sentence I write an
unconscious quote from something else? Am I always echoing some forgotten source?
This is the curse of a retentive memory. I don’t call it a
“good” memory; it’s been a headache more often than not. I can’t forget things.
I remember irrelevant details. I remember stupid song lyrics, and unimportant
movie dialogue, and sometimes even the tone of voice in which the dialogue was delivered.
So probably I will never write a word that’s truly original.
Ah well. I manage to stay pretty jolly.
(That last line is a quote, by the way. Ten dollars to the first reader who can tell me where it's from!)
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