i am a confirmed collector of quotations. i have small notebooks full of them. many from books and a few from films, but mostly from the clever people who surround me. i remember some years ago, a friend complaining that he could never make my quote book. but if you are trying too hard, you'll never make it. and he did eventually do so, with some quote about biology, as i recall (i cannot currently locate that small notebook, as many of my books are still packed away awaiting the renovations of this house).
but i've found myself thinking about quotations recently. because a lot of them seem to be floating around. there are these trendy postcards with pithy comments on them that i think have been brought on by an odd combination of mad men and pinterest. and those "keep calm and ..." variations. and my facebook feed is full of self-help quotes. platitudes really. and i wonder what it is that makes us need platitudes so much at this particular juncture? they're generally quite obvious and a bit vapid and aimed at boosting our self-esteem. but why do we need that?
is it really more prevalent now than in other times? has world economic crisis really shaken our confidence so much that we need empty reassurance that it's all going to be ok if we just believe, don't look back, crush monsanto, eat right, live in the now, stop medicating, eat raw, grow our own, look for the silver lining?
but what if it's not...what if all of the true Idea People are gone and all we're left with is mediocrity? and these platitudes are the logical conclusion. and what we're witnessing is the end of civilization as we knew it? what if it's not going to be ok?
where are the cutesy 50s postcards about that?
3 comments:
Oh God, I'm so depressed now. I've been asking myself the same questions, looking at the same quotes on Facebook and wondering if it's me or if the world has become void of thinking.
Now I know it's either you and me or the world has become void of thinking.
It actually scares me to think about it and it just makes me want to shout WAKE UP!!
I like how your thinking, and agree with your post - I have been thinking the same lately, as I plough through pages of pages of them on FB and Pintrest! Vapid... I love that!
You only spent a couple of days with me, so how did you become me?
I can't stand, I mean really can't stand that stuff, but I cannot say it, because then I am the negative person in the room and we all know, from those positive platitudes, that the negative person is the one who ruins your otherwise wonderful life.
The idea people aren't gone, they are just buried under the weight of false positive thinking and Rod McKuen poetry mixed with zen.
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