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Welcome to the second week of our competition to discover The Real LJ Idol!
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popfiend comes the Real LJ Idol WEEK TWO TOPIC:
"On LJ, it's easy for us to write what's bad about ourselves. Self-deprecation is often a daily theme. But this week's topic is about doing something different. This week's topic is: I'm Super, Thanks for Asking! Tell everyone about what makes you special, what makes you great, why you are awesome! Pump up the volume and pump up yourself!!!"
*sigh*
Humble-–and proud of it! So humble that he's terrifying . . . so ego-inflated but wanting others to correct him on his self-deprecation . . . but beneath there lurks the Evil. Heep's really not humble at all.
Dickens manages to convey in twenty words what most authors would only be able to muster up five about. If you can't read stuff written before 1985*, consider Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar in _Wayne’s World_ groveling before rock star Alice Cooper (a preacher's kid, BTW), and crying out, “We're not worthy! We're not worthy!” We don't want to do that, either (although the way you get treated by agents and other publishing industry typhoons** can certainly make you feel as if you are expected to!)
Humility is overrated, says The Real LJ Idol. Tell why you're great!
*Ack* I think there's an awful lot of inflated self-esteem around, and I try not to add to it. For one thing, if I brag or mention something nice about me, there are people lined up to straighten me out, knock me off that high horse, put me in my place. It's better just to let the good deeds or talents speak for themselves, isn't it?
Sure, there are positive things about me. Let me cogitate . . . ah:
* I know words like "cogitate." (5 Princess Points)
* I've never committed a felony (or even a misdemeanor, or at least one that I got caught doing.) (20 Princess Points)
* I can play "Humoresque" on the black keys. (6.5 Princess Points)
* I can eat the same menu for weeks on end (and do, because this diet is pretty restricted.) (100 Anorexia Princess Points)
* I'm good to my dog. (No extra credit for that one)
Speaking of dogs, I can write doggerel if I've got a prompt (and while singing at the sink, I am prone to do a Weird Al/Allan Sherman parody of songs when I forget the words or don't like the words.) Doggerel and poems, I suppose. For example:
Love is infinite; the cheat is that our time here is not.
You choose (or not) simply because you choose (or not).
It's not the game, "Chocolate or vanilla? Choose."
It's "Your life. Choose." And so you choose your life.
(Ecch, but that was off-the-cuff, prompted by various reminders, including an older post byklingon_guy some time ago about the "Choose:" game that Ray and what's-her-name used to play on "Radio Free Roscoe.")
Still not impressed? Me neither.
All right, let's pull out the resume. I've written a number of novels. I was a National Merit Scholar at SMU and managed to get out with degrees in math and computer science. I used to have a real job as a software engineer, and could probably cobble up some pseudocode even now. I survived a life-threatening illness twice and am one of God's elect (just yanking your chain here, but who can help feeling blessed when others have not prevailed?) Born with the spelling gene, I am a natural proofreader, and typos seem to leap off the page begging me to correct them. (Down, boy!) I've served as an officer in North Texas Mensa. I can write fiction in just about any genre. I play classical/jazz piano at an intermediate level and also play by ear. I see in color. I can whistle through my teeth.
So?
As I said, there's not much point in extolling one's own virtues. They say, "if you don't blow your own horn, who will?" But don't you get tired of hearing all that loud, off-key blatting all the time? People are all too willing to tell you all about themselves and their kids and their favorite football franchise and how great they are and how they "kick ass." I think it gets a little old. Can't we allow people to discover for themselves what they think about us?
The humble person doesn’t think s/he’s useless or lowly or nothing. "I know I'm wicked. Kick me some more." This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having a sense of perspective about yourself and how you compare to everybody else. You don't constantly have to try to "measure up" and tell about how you've failed, but also you don't have to bounce around like a golden retriever all the time being happy to just be you, like Big Gay Al from "South Park."
It's tough for me, because I *do* default to the downside. If I say that I'm working on a new novel, my family tunes that out at best, and at worst says, "I don't want to hear that; I've been hearing that for twenty years, and it's a bunch of wasted effort." If I send out work, it gets rejected and/or trashed. This weekend I tried several times to make a decent demo tape of two of my songs to send to a friend, and not even *I* could pretend that they were representative of what the songs could be in the hands of someone more gifted with the ol' pipes. (Even the piano was out of tune. Thud-O-Rama.) It's tough to flip this stuff on its head and be all rah-rah about it. (Although perhaps THAT is a talent in itself. Pollyanna, meet your match!)
However, I suppose balance is the answer. Can I claim that one of the positive aspects of being me is that I can argue either side of most questions, and can reach a balance in most situations? We woke up this morning and we're not dead; we can type; we can read. Cool! We're ahead of the game. We're in luck.
And to return to Dickens for a moment, consider where Dickens got the names for his characters. In the Bible, Uriah was a soldier in King David's army. David seduced his wife, and in order to be able to marry her, sent off Uriah to certain death in the battlefield. Maybe Dickens was pulling a turnabout on us with those names--David being the good guy and Uriah being the oily sneak. Sometimes the positive guy isn't what he or she seems . . . and the not-so-positive one is pretty cool, after all. Must we be out at one of these extremes?
Let's try to settle somewhere in between, in the realm of "only human." (Or, if you will, "not perfect--just forgiven.")
The character Uriah Heep appears here courtesy of Charles Dickens’ _David Copperfield_.
* Or even the year 2000
** A deliberate play on "tycoons"
[EDIT: P. S. No, I did NOT readpopfiend's entry before writing this one this morning--but it would certainly seem as though I had, for I touched on several points that he also made. ("Tooting your own horn" and "modesty/humility," for example.) However, I approached it from the Dark Side, as is my custom, and I did not mention . . . you know, stinky stuff.]
[EDIT #2: Want to peek at other LJ Idol entries? Patience . . . it takes awhile to load, as there are 70-some-odd contestants. And I do mean odd.)]
From
popfiend comes the Real LJ Idol WEEK TWO TOPIC:"On LJ, it's easy for us to write what's bad about ourselves. Self-deprecation is often a daily theme. But this week's topic is about doing something different. This week's topic is: I'm Super, Thanks for Asking! Tell everyone about what makes you special, what makes you great, why you are awesome! Pump up the volume and pump up yourself!!!"
*sigh*
"'I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?' I said, after looking at [the writhing little man Uriah Heep] for some time.
'Me, Master Copperfield?' said Uriah. 'Oh, no! I'm a very 'umble person.' [...] 'I am well aware that I am the 'umblest person going,' said Uriah Heep, modestly; 'let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very 'umble person.'"
--Charles Dickens, _David Copperfield_
Humble-–and proud of it! So humble that he's terrifying . . . so ego-inflated but wanting others to correct him on his self-deprecation . . . but beneath there lurks the Evil. Heep's really not humble at all.
Dickens manages to convey in twenty words what most authors would only be able to muster up five about. If you can't read stuff written before 1985*, consider Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar in _Wayne’s World_ groveling before rock star Alice Cooper (a preacher's kid, BTW), and crying out, “We're not worthy! We're not worthy!” We don't want to do that, either (although the way you get treated by agents and other publishing industry typhoons** can certainly make you feel as if you are expected to!)
Humility is overrated, says The Real LJ Idol. Tell why you're great!
*Ack* I think there's an awful lot of inflated self-esteem around, and I try not to add to it. For one thing, if I brag or mention something nice about me, there are people lined up to straighten me out, knock me off that high horse, put me in my place. It's better just to let the good deeds or talents speak for themselves, isn't it?
Sure, there are positive things about me. Let me cogitate . . . ah:
* I know words like "cogitate." (5 Princess Points)
* I've never committed a felony (or even a misdemeanor, or at least one that I got caught doing.) (20 Princess Points)
* I can play "Humoresque" on the black keys. (6.5 Princess Points)
* I can eat the same menu for weeks on end (and do, because this diet is pretty restricted.) (100 Anorexia Princess Points)
* I'm good to my dog. (No extra credit for that one)
Speaking of dogs, I can write doggerel if I've got a prompt (and while singing at the sink, I am prone to do a Weird Al/Allan Sherman parody of songs when I forget the words or don't like the words.) Doggerel and poems, I suppose. For example:
Love is infinite; the cheat is that our time here is not.
You choose (or not) simply because you choose (or not).
It's not the game, "Chocolate or vanilla? Choose."
It's "Your life. Choose." And so you choose your life.
(Ecch, but that was off-the-cuff, prompted by various reminders, including an older post by
klingon_guy some time ago about the "Choose:" game that Ray and what's-her-name used to play on "Radio Free Roscoe.")Still not impressed? Me neither.
All right, let's pull out the resume. I've written a number of novels. I was a National Merit Scholar at SMU and managed to get out with degrees in math and computer science. I used to have a real job as a software engineer, and could probably cobble up some pseudocode even now. I survived a life-threatening illness twice and am one of God's elect (just yanking your chain here, but who can help feeling blessed when others have not prevailed?) Born with the spelling gene, I am a natural proofreader, and typos seem to leap off the page begging me to correct them. (Down, boy!) I've served as an officer in North Texas Mensa. I can write fiction in just about any genre. I play classical/jazz piano at an intermediate level and also play by ear. I see in color. I can whistle through my teeth.
So?
As I said, there's not much point in extolling one's own virtues. They say, "if you don't blow your own horn, who will?" But don't you get tired of hearing all that loud, off-key blatting all the time? People are all too willing to tell you all about themselves and their kids and their favorite football franchise and how great they are and how they "kick ass." I think it gets a little old. Can't we allow people to discover for themselves what they think about us?
The humble person doesn’t think s/he’s useless or lowly or nothing. "I know I'm wicked. Kick me some more." This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having a sense of perspective about yourself and how you compare to everybody else. You don't constantly have to try to "measure up" and tell about how you've failed, but also you don't have to bounce around like a golden retriever all the time being happy to just be you, like Big Gay Al from "South Park."
It's tough for me, because I *do* default to the downside. If I say that I'm working on a new novel, my family tunes that out at best, and at worst says, "I don't want to hear that; I've been hearing that for twenty years, and it's a bunch of wasted effort." If I send out work, it gets rejected and/or trashed. This weekend I tried several times to make a decent demo tape of two of my songs to send to a friend, and not even *I* could pretend that they were representative of what the songs could be in the hands of someone more gifted with the ol' pipes. (Even the piano was out of tune. Thud-O-Rama.) It's tough to flip this stuff on its head and be all rah-rah about it. (Although perhaps THAT is a talent in itself. Pollyanna, meet your match!)
However, I suppose balance is the answer. Can I claim that one of the positive aspects of being me is that I can argue either side of most questions, and can reach a balance in most situations? We woke up this morning and we're not dead; we can type; we can read. Cool! We're ahead of the game. We're in luck.
And to return to Dickens for a moment, consider where Dickens got the names for his characters. In the Bible, Uriah was a soldier in King David's army. David seduced his wife, and in order to be able to marry her, sent off Uriah to certain death in the battlefield. Maybe Dickens was pulling a turnabout on us with those names--David being the good guy and Uriah being the oily sneak. Sometimes the positive guy isn't what he or she seems . . . and the not-so-positive one is pretty cool, after all. Must we be out at one of these extremes?
Let's try to settle somewhere in between, in the realm of "only human." (Or, if you will, "not perfect--just forgiven.")
The character Uriah Heep appears here courtesy of Charles Dickens’ _David Copperfield_.
* Or even the year 2000
** A deliberate play on "tycoons"
[EDIT: P. S. No, I did NOT read
popfiend's entry before writing this one this morning--but it would certainly seem as though I had, for I touched on several points that he also made. ("Tooting your own horn" and "modesty/humility," for example.) However, I approached it from the Dark Side, as is my custom, and I did not mention . . . you know, stinky stuff.][EDIT #2: Want to peek at other LJ Idol entries? Patience . . . it takes awhile to load, as there are 70-some-odd contestants. And I do mean odd.)]
