Tag: community

Without people you’re nothing

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

joe strummer quote

So.

It looks like Patreon turned itself around and said ‘we done fucked up’, and decided not to follow through with the fee changes.  Which is a good thing.

Doug Jones barely eked by with a win in Alabama, and won it fair and square with just enough that an automatic recount won’t happen…and Roy Moore refuses to concede.

Now we have the FCC voting among party lines yesterday to kill Net Neutrality.

It’s been that sort of week.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the Republicans have been voting in lockstep for nearly all the least wanted, horribly written, barely thought out bills and resolutions.  I start wondering if they have an endgame here, if there’s some Big Reveal that’s going to happen in Act III that’s going to explain just what the flying fuck they’re attempting to do.  Or is it just going to stop mid-sentence with no resolution?  Have they even made an outline to this book of theirs?

[Don’t get me wrong — it’s not that I hate the party.  If they want to have an intelligent conversation and work in tandem with (if not alongside) the Democrats, then I have no problem with that.  But this past year has been one incompetent shitshow after another from them, and they’re really not selling me on their brand of governing.  Especially when they’re literally targeting my parents, my family, my neighbors, and my friends with their unabashed hatefulness and ignorance.  And me, with the Net Neutrality repeal bullshit.  And being pretty fucking brazen about it at that.]

But what I’ve also been thinking about, a lot, has been community.

I’ve already tweeted and blogged about that Jane Jacobs book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, but more to the point I’ve been thinking a lot about community in general.  I used to think of community service (I’m talking here about donating your time and services because you want to, not the court-assigned version) as a good thing to do, though for years I thought it really wasn’t my bag.  Let’s face it, at the time I was either lazy or selfish, both, felt it was expected of me or that I was guilted into it; it was rarely of my own volition.

The idea of community ties in with my new novel project; in fact, the idea of community service is a subplot for a few of the characters.  Not to worry, I’m not planning on doing any soapboxing here.  It’s just part of the overall story.  In fact, it’s more about embracing the fact that there are other people out there in one’s immediate vicinity than your family or significant other.  Acknowledging that they’re there, that they may be different from you in some ways, but just the same in others.

Community can’t happen if you choose to ignore or exclude people.  Sure, you can paint it in patriotic colors and all, but those colors are going to fade if all you want in your community is People Just Like You, and leave out the Other.  Even and especially if you try to paint it as ‘personal freedom’.  Community doesn’t work that way.

So what does this have to do with writing, anyway?  Why am I bloviating about this here?  Well, a) because it’s my blog and I can do so if I want (neener neener pthththbbt!), and b) the public’s reaction to these hateful shenanigans has been absolutely amazing.  The overwhelming response has been one of true community — bringing all kinds of people together, often in breathtakingly high numbers, to counteract the hate and the ignorance.  I see amazing numbers fighting back.  And even winning.  I join in when I can and how I can, and in the process I realize I’ve not been reacting as with feelings of doom and sorrow as much as I used to.  It’s more irritation and annoyance now, and I can work better with those.  Because that feeling of community.

And in the process it’s given me a clearer way to get through my day, to get through my creative endeavors without feeling useless.  And it’s inspired me to think more about how I create my characters; who I base them on, where they come from, who they are, what they do.  A vibrant community of all different kinds opens up not just different cultural ideas but different points of view.  And that’s what a good novel always needs.

 

Eicho d’eichi.

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Well.

Obviously you know how I feel about the Fuckwit winning.

But that’s not what I’m going to talk about.

Let’s talk about other writers, other artists, other musicians.  The creative people out there who inspire us, entertain us, move our spirits.

I’m looking pretty far ahead at the moment.  I dearly hope that I am 100% wrong in feeling this way, but I would not be the least bit surprised if over the next four years, life for creative people starts getting harder.  And that life for people who want to be creative — the students and the kids who dream about being writers, artists, knitters, sculptors, musicians and so on — gets harder as well.

You already know how I feel about this; it’s always aggravated and annoyed me that the arts is always the last on the budget list and the first to get axed when the economy starts tanking.  You can get financial help if you’re a football or basketball player, but you’re not worth much if you sit around trying to create something (that is, of course, unless you create something that’ll make tons of cash for everyone).  Too many people I know are held back from doing what they do and love best because of the Real Life of having to get a secondary job to supplement their income.

I should know. I’m one of them.  Sure, my wife and I are reasonably okay financially, but if I could contribute as much to our combined income using just my writing, I’d drop my Day Job in a heartbeat.

This is precisely why I love this recent vibrant era of DIY creativity.  Self-publishing, pop-up galleries, personal online stores, webcomics, boutique startups, Bandcamp.  It’s more, a LOT more than saying to hell with the establishment, more than saying ‘wouldn’t it be fun to put on a show in the barn’.  It’s saying “I know exactly what I want to do with my life, and I’m going to make that a reality.”  It’s not saying ‘fuck the rules’, it’s completely rewriting them.

So.

I ask all of you now, do me a solid:

Look at your social media timelines.  Look at those webcomics you read every day.  Look at those bands whose music you download from Bandcamp.  Look at that necklace or pair of earrings you bought off Etsy.  Look at those artists whose painting you picked up from their tiny booth at the local pop-up gallery down the street.  Look at those creative people, and realize that this, their creative work is what they do best.  This is what makes them happy.  This is what lifts their spirits.  Your purchases and downloads and reviews are there to say “I love what you created.”

Do me a favor:  in the next four years, if any of them have a Patreon, are running a Kickstarter, or are doing some kind of of fundraising so they can stay in business doing what they do and love the most in their lives, please donate.  Even if it’s five dollars a month.

What you’re giving them is more than money.  You’re giving them a chance to live the life they’ve always wanted to live.  And that is one of the best things you can do for someone.

 

*Note:  – Yes, my subject line is in Anjshé.  It means “brothers and sisters.”