It's easy for me to say that Twitter drains all my will to blog, since it allows me to broadcast my life whenever and wherever I want and prevents that urge from filling up to blog entry proportions, but I'm not sure if it's actually true. It's certainly a reasonable argument, but that doesn't make it useful. I certainly haven't changed my behavior much as a result of it. And I really should. For all that blogging is trashed in the popular media as being cheap and narcissistic, for me it might well be the ticket to finding employment. These days, that seems to be the be-all end-all for me.
It's another topic I have a lot of reasonable thoughts, answers, and opinions about. I get asked about my plans on a pretty regular basis, so it makes sense that I am well-versed at talking about them, usually with a self-deprecating, sardonic shrug. I am very good at appearing endearingly helpless at the hands of fate and a tough job market. But what good does that do?
In French National Cinema, we're studying Poetic Realism, a pre-war movement that essentially encapsulates the epitome of a French film for most people. A Poetic Realist film might have this dialogue:
In short, it's French disillusionment and cynicism at its best. The problem with it, though, is that it doesn't allow for redemption, salvation, success, free will, or optimism. It's unrelentingly pessimistically pragmatic.Man: But what is freedom? Just an illusion. The illusion that we could escape from this cage called the world. There is no freedom.Woman: And what about love?Man: Sometimes we meet someone who helps us, a stranger. But soon they are gone. We don't have time for love.Woman: All is lost.Man: I know.Woman: Kiss me.
What use is pragmatism if it doesn't offer any solutions, if it just recognizes life's difficulties as insurmountable and definite? Very little, to my mind.
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