Shorthand for Nothing

I’ve been slowly working my way back through Tolkien’s works in the past few weeks. I re-read the Hobbit, which I don’t think I’d done since middle school, and am re-reading The Lord of the Rings, which I have done more recently, but it has still been a few years. This feels like the first time I have done so since I really knew the movies well, and while for the most part I view them as different works, it is interesting to note some of the changes. In many places, the movies have taken the books and improved upon them, in terms of dramatic content and dialog; in many others, the movies have taken the books and made them significantly less awesome.

After that it will be The Silmarillion, and then, I expect, The Children of Hurin, which I actually have not yet read. This summer I’ve been craving high fantasy for some reason, and Tolkien more or less defined the genre.

From there I will probably move on to the collection of Dostoevsky I picked up in Chicago, or some of the other books I have lying around that I’ve been meaning to get to. Tolkien is almost meant to be consumed in bulk, though I wouldn’t describe it as easy reading: it’s a legendarium. It is something intended to be a lengthy period of consumption, or not at all. Dostoevsky, I’m not convinced I could consume in such enormous qualities. But we shall see!

In any case, I’ve been trying to get back on top of reading things more. It may just be a summer thing, but maybe not. It’s been nice, and I have quite the list of things I’ve been meaning to get to, both new and old. Since a lot of these are now across the country, I may have to do some exploring.

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Oh, Twitter. While you have your detractors, and those who are under the delusion that the content you generate ought to be in some way useful, there are still those who understand that you are beautiful. Even if Chuck Norris is a trending topic right now. It’s not your fault humanity needs to be taken out back and shot.

I used to get a little annoyed by the trending topics and the idiotic Twitter memes. That so many people were typing the hashtag #liesgirlstell or whatever, was occasionally disheartening. But I have persevered, because in the end, Twitter is about nothing. You will see many loathsome social media people try to tell you how to use Twitter, or how it is intended to be used, but it is precisely its uselessness that makes it so useful. It’s not about link-farming. I seldom click Twitter-links, and judging from several other people I’m following, neither do they. It’s not about breaking news. My favorite Twitter accounts provide me with very little  actual information at all, but say something in a way which is amusing or clever or witty or whatever. They amuse me. They’re brilliantly crafted.

I am following a few of the loathsome social media people, the ones who “know how Twitter works,” and generally speaking I only care if I feel like talking about Twitter, in which case they are a great source of bad information. They apparently do not know how to engage me, and I’m pretty easy to please.

Twitter in its base state is idle and passive. You are not investing anything by sharing your thoughts. It’s background noise, rather like birds chirping outside. Occasionally a conversation flows out of it–but its power is ultimately in its emptiness, in the lack of any prescription or purpose. It is the most human of social media for just that reason.

By the way, this is apparently the hundredth post at rsmason.net. I expect you all to buy me drinks.

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So, I’ve been sick lately. It’s one unknown variable I’m never quite sure how to deal with–I generally avoid medicines for various reasons, but despite my intention not to let it interfere, it always manages to anyway. Somewhere between not wanting to infect the population and not wanting to deal with the malaise and the headache and the fever while also dealing with being in public, I find myself largely unable to do all of those things I’d been planning on.

All of this to say ‘I’m sick, I have been sleeping forever, etc.’ It really bothers me that the best words I can use to describe it are ‘general malaise’ and ‘generic sick-feeling.’ But that’s the best there is: it feels generally unpleasant and tiring, and focusing on dull, mindless tasks is best.

Fortunately I seem to be getting better.

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