Writing For Idiots

By Roger Colins 

_____________________________________________________________ Representitive Literature? Surely not... Normally, I give myself a wide birth. Is that me? Could be, but could be you as well.   When I give myself a wide birth I'm allowing myself the ability to be misunderstood and when allowing someone else a wide birth, allowing them the ability to misunderstand. Could you get through that sentence without reading it twice? If you could, thine be mine bretherin. If not, well then... Sorry to have to do this but I feel that it is an important, nay, a paramount point that has to be said. I am no elitist and insist that learning, is a long, swooping, never ending curve. I was always told to write as if writing for a three year old, or there abouts. The idea is that anyone can read your work and your work can be understood. Fair enough. But, wait. What if everyone suddenly turns into genii? Yes, it is a word, plural for geniuses. Whoops, there I go again. I'd have to up my game a bit so that my work isn't passed off as remedial when it is supposed to be something more. Come on, what if everyone turned into morons? Exactly, I would say. I'd just have to write so much more carefully, on a hope and a prayer that the morons reading my work had the necessary attention span to get to the end. I would, after all, have to use more words as the bigger words that would not be understood would require whole sentences to get the meaning across to these third graders. Let me give you an example. Shakespere  I was about thirteen years old sooo, lets say this is 1995. Holy shit! A long time ago. Hmm. Anyway, my upper school class along with myself were taken along to a certain movie, originally penned by William Shakespere, reproduced and depicted with the help of one, Leonardo DiCaprio. The problem was, that the original Shakespearean language was not tampered with and the dialemma, that it left me sitting next to my best mate, telling me he didn't understand a word. Oh Shit. Well, normally I would have turned to said person in the theatre and asked them if they spoke English. Nay, I did not for I have a kind heart in my breast may it damn me to hell. I just tried to give my friend the general idea of what was going on while Mercutio was pointing his 'swords' at everyone. And we return. Now I am somewhat the twenty years on now, I have the advantage of retrospect and can use it in this well formulated and entirely improvsed illustration. Just when are we going to be able to write for those that aren't idiots? Yes, he was my best friend and I do not mean to impinge on any of you that do not understand what I am saying, just, that I am bored having to make myself more stupid in order to create something new. If I want to sell a shit load of volumes and books, signings, posters, publicity and interviews and what ever so have you, yes... I have to write for the masses and leave my true talent, truly, wasted. I can freely understand that a paper that has to be specific in all areas of accuracy such as counting and measuring must be without any room for dispute. But those that have this room, the arts such as literature, for one, art, for one and all by one, dance, music, all the fun bits in life that spur the imagination so that the scientists may take and use them for a new idea of where to look and what to look for... have been encouraged to be so, bloody, stupid. Cavemen Complex I will ask that one imagine the beginning of, consciousness... for humankind, at the very least. A caveman perhaps, a monkey in a tree if you're more open to further possibilities. Now, take your future, as you see it now, where we have come from and where we are now along with everything in between and spin it, 180 degrees. Do you think we will have gotten as far as we are now? Do you think that by going in the opposite direction, we will have gone backwards?  Do you think we will have found something new?  Do you think we will have surpassed our current circumstances?  Do you think that we will have become stunted as a result? Do any of you think that by approaching the problem from the opposite angle there is a possibility we may have advanced further than we have achieved to this date, from the direction the human race actually did decide upon?  You can, also argue that we had no choice, fair play. I implied this earlier but feel that I should make it quite clear now. This, what I am writing, is unedited. Just like how you prattle and honk with your friends and family, I'm just spewing my own bullshit in the way that I see fit. There is an upside to this, unedited, live type as well. It is un-moderated. No one to tell me when to stop, what not to say nor when not to say it. No questions, no answers, no conclusions. There's another. It's true language. If you don't get it, tough shit and you can call me a bullshitter, talking utter nonsense and going nowhere without a point but, hold on, aren't there entire professions for this? Training Idiots Lecturers? Yes, Lecturers do the exact same thing but they will indeed have an entire script ready to read from that has been doctored and edited and messed with and refined so that the largest demographic, who ever they are, can understand it. Huh? Why? I don't see the point. If everyone can understand it then there's no point in giving a lecture, surely they'll figure it out for themselves one day... Might be a good idea to inform those that will never know, but they aren't going to be in the audience, are they? I say, challenge, push, and push hard. Doesn't mean that anyone or everyone is a loser, just means that they didn't catch the previous class. They can catch up later. I'm one of those, I'm catching up and not everything I hear is understood. Some things make no sense to me at all and I might even call some of them utter bullshit. That doesn't mean that in a hundred years time these things won't be known as law or fact or history. No, just means I'm just as much of an idiot as everyone else. The only difference will be is that I was not treated like one and did not consider myself one. Treating students like idiots, will surly turn them into idiots. Treating anyone like genii, will surly, turn them into geniuses as well and I beg for the day that the geniuses of this world are allowed to write for the geniuses of this world, as well... not, the idiots!

Shakespere Cavemen Education