Dueling Perspectives

I was talking about blogging recently and a friend responded with "Don't you think self-referential writing, is kind of, well, over?" I didn't answer but later I thought to myself —How can anybody go through their days without thinking that others might share some slice of their perspective, or look at things through a similar lens, or atleast have the desire to learn from the way others perceive the world? Also what exactly did people do at their desks before having half a dozen blogs to hit each day?

Outlook-seeking is essential to memoirs as well. You are able to find yourself inside someone's life that is so far geographically, historically, or factually from your own and still relate those words to your experience walking down a block in your home city on any given day.

My boss gave me a book for my birthday, Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy by Dave Hickey. I should use my thesaurus to find alternatives to the word "dense" to describe Mr. Hickey's writing. I think he used "quotidian" atleast 4 times in the introduction. I am mining my way through the first few essays and most will require second or third readings; But I've already found some gems.

Hickey often addresses the issue of perpendicular and parallel perspectives. In the first essay he describes his former career as a rock critic, and how he used to wonder why there are so many love songs yet "ninety percent of rock criticism was written about the other ten percent." To simplify things, Hickey comes to the conclusion that we need love songs to aid procreation, "perpetuation of the species."

But later he also says, "...it's hard to find someone you love, who loves you—but you can begin, at least, by finding some one who loves your love song."

I can't help but agree—since I suppose, self-referential writing is never over and we are all narcissists at heart.