“Negativity is the enemy of creativity” — David Lynch
For the most part, David Lynch seems to have walloped the proverbial nail on its head. Negativity in both its guises—the traditional absence and the modern, Oprah-inspired lack of go get ‘em thinking—simply seems to stop shit from getting done. But what about those nails that David, corporeal hammer of happiness in hand, is too blinded by delirium to notice—those pesky little beasts that just won’t seem to bend into shape and slot neatly into place?
Having spent the majority of my 23 years resisting attempts to straighten and fill holes (a later post, probably), it’ll bring you little shock to hear that I have supple sympathy with these irksome, iron little bastards. These exceptions to David’s rule, these instances of negativity being the bedmate of creativity, deserve notice; this blog looks to be one of them.
At their planning meeting for me this year, the Fates probably didn’t see many negatives: a degree, a new home, and that most coveted kind of employment: the desired kind. Three quarters of the way through 2014, though, it seems the Fates clocked out early that day. What they’ve been so liberal with up until this point, what I’ve previously been able to piddle against a wall, now seems in shockingly short supply. There’s no seamless transition for this, but no English tutor to berate me for it either: I’m talking about time. Since making the move a month ago I've been spread achingly thin: a job at a top PR agency, a flat that needs more taking care of than Taylor post-Harry, a soon-to-be middle-distance relationship, similarly soon-to-be middle-sized prosecco pecs, friends with whom I counted hours before I moved to the capital, and a mum who could talk until her tongue flopped out. Time is not only my most prized commodity; it’s my negative in both senses of the word. The guy with no time, and no time for it either.
Counterproductive as taking on another commitment might read, I’m hoping this blog is my double negative: the place I’m forced by negative time to jot things down, when I might before have spun them into a seminar discussion at the very least, in the hope that those things might add up to something lengthy and half-decent. Continuing its introduction, then, and having now lost about 80% since “For the most part”, it seems pertinent to say at its perverse inception what this blog is not:
- It is not a diary, which might be the last thing I need before I topple from sensitive to pitiful and which I am thus understandably (sensitively) avoiding at all costs.
- It is not a homosexual version of Carrie Bradshaw’s column. I’ll bring in friends, I’ll theme each post, and I’ll do my best to keep those silly enough to like it wanting more, but I’ll enter a monastery sooner than give more credence to the feather-boa brigade.
- It is not a place I will be pernickety about topic, theme or continuity—if something gives me food for thought I’ll write it, and giving me a 2.2 will no longer make me weep.
With that, a blog inspired by absence and pessimism has it’s first entry. Maybe David got it the wrong way round, and its creativity that's the enemy of negativity. Then again, maybe not.
