Con #7 - Too Much Time On My Hands
I write a lot these days. Not all of it gets me a paycheck, but I keep on writing because it makes me feel like I’m getting something done. And when you don’t have a job, and spend as much time in front of the computer as I do, you want to feel like you’re getting something done. Every now and then something I write is a touch disagreeable to over denizens of this fine internet. People get pissed off and start doing what they can to let me know just how pissed off they are. It’s rare to really stoke someone’s ire. It takes my ranting particularly vehemently against something that in all honest sucks; Stephen King, American Idol, the American Education system. My short diatribe against Stephen King earned me scorn not only from random bloggers from who-the-hell-cares.com, but from my friends. I suppose Stephen King has a bit of a following of his own.
Anyways, the con in all this, because I honestly don’t care what other people think of my opinions, is that I have entirely too much time on my hands and can thus get on a roll, randomly surfing for things that mention my posts or articles. This isn’t restricted to just people writing angry disagreements with my opinions, but with anything in general. Occasionally I’ll find someone’s stolen one of my articles, or misquoted me, or something else completely irrelavent to what color the paint on my walls is, but I run across it and must inquire regardless. And if anyone goes so far as to ask, “don’t you have anything better to do?” I’m left scratching my head and shrugging, “not really.”
What’s the mesage in all this? I’m too self-conscious, especially if I’m going to sit and write angrily about all the things that get under my skin. If I’m complaining about the Seattle city transit system, yeah I’m probably okay, because who’s going to disagree with me. If I’m complaining about the most popular writer of the 20th century or the most popular show on tv, I’m probably going to get a few disagreements scattered across the net. I shouldn’t care….and if I had less time on my hands, I wouldn’t.