'Forget all the rules. Forget about being published.
Write for yourself and celebrate writing.'



Melinda
Haynes

Reductionism: The Net by unarranged complicity is rifely guilty of the most blatant reductionism.  You’ve seen those “What-kind-of-something-are-you?” tests?  Of course.  They are everywhere.  You know, those online quizzes that tell you which industrial solvent, Hummel figurine, or brand of scooping cat litter you are?

The problem I have with most of them, not all, but most, is not that I mind imagining myself, for example, as a genre of faerie, sex position, or scooping kitty poop, but that more often than not the category in which I should fall is non-existent as of the moment. 

For instance: Faerie-wise, I am the Anti-Philosophy Faerie who makes peeps lose deep, penuriously ponderous thoughts by dart-blowing ancient Chinese glyph-holographs deep into their cerebrums while tickling their eardrums.  Sex-position-wise, I am the Crooked Arrow Position who runs nekkid and fully erect at full speed for purposes of coupling with his consenting partner who is tied to a tree—miss or hit, anguish or ecstasy.  Cat-litter-wise, I am Weightless Clumping Cat Litter in which every granule is enmeshed in a fine wandable net to catch cat peep and do-do evacuated during space flights intended to colonize other worlds. 

You see?!  I don’t usually fit into a quaint test slot.  And I’d bet a lot of you don’t either.  If the extant culture were entirely capable of fully typifying us, stagnation would ensue.  There would be no need for innovation or expansion or creative elaboration since, at core, we would remain the forever pigeon-holed “What-kind-of-who are-you”  yous.  Acquiescing to the lame categorizations of most of these tests reduces us, imprisons me.

So…xxreaderxx, ”What kind of insurgent upstart blogger are you?”

Shh!  And practice your Chinese!