Why Inspirational Quotes Don't Work

We’ve all seen these quotes, often wrongly attributed to some poor, dead philosopher who can’t argue back. There’s whole Twitter accounts dedicated to trying to make the digital population feel energised, motivated and generally better about their lives. But does it work? Are these supposedly meaningful timeline messages just the online equivalent of graffiti on the toilet wall? Let’s assess the statement.

Beautiful things happen in your life when you distance yourself from negativity. Apparently.

Beautiful things happen

They do, yes. However, your definition of ‘beautiful things’ will undoubtedly differ from mine. A short, but not exhaustive list of things I think are beautiful:
Puppies; having the correct change; perfectly crisp toast smothered in butter; love, I guess; peeling the foil lid off the toothpaste in one piece; stars, probably?

To use an actual proverb, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. In terms of your beautiful things, you do you.

In your life

What does this actually mean? Is it suggesting the aforementioned beautiful things will happen to me, or just in my life? This could easily mean things will happen to other people, or inanimate objects in my life. In your life. My skin is part of my life. So is catching the bus. This part is too vague, and not worthy of further assessment.

When you distance yourself from negativity

Okay, let’s have a go on this bit. If for some reason I was in the vicinity of someone prejudiced or bigoted, I would consider that negative. As such I would distance myself from that person by either leaving the immediate area, or ensuring I never speak to them again. Would something beautiful happen? I’d be far, far away from an idiot, so that is a tick in the box for me.

If you consider something like climate change, would you distance yourself from that? No. You would stay. Either to help improve the world through encouraging renewable energy, for example, or stay, because leaving planet Earth is yet to become an option. You can’t distance yourself from a negative environmental certainty. If you did, would something beautiful happen? You’d be ignoring the future of the planet in favour of running around, fingers in ears, going “la-la-la I’m not listening”. No tick.

Nope, this quote doesn’t work; it’s all wonky. Beautiful things don’t happen as a direct result of experiencing no or fewer negative things. People are moulded by their experiences of the world, both good and bad. “Distancing” yourself is not enough, and running away or hiding from negativity won’t make it go away. We must face the monsters under our bed and care about each other. No amount of inspirational quotes will activate change; only the actions of willing people can do that.

To sum it up, I suggest a small, almost imperceptible edit: 

Be positive.

New submissions

My new work is another submission for Are You Sitting Comfortably? hosted by The White Rabbit. This time the theme is 'heroes and villains' and I'm taking a sideways look at what it means to be heroic in a world of superheroes. Are the heroes the ones with their pants over their tights? Or are they the normal people going to work and keeping the economy afloat? Are the villains always the ones laughing in an underground lair, or are they the people who look just like you and me?

I've also found a writing group near me and I am working on a piece on the theme of 'intrusion', which is proving difficult to avoid stereotypes and clumsy plot so  it needs a lot more thought.
I watch a lot of horror films (read: horror is the only genre I watch) so the theme is familiar to the point of being predictable - "What was that sound?" "Oh no, the serial killer is in the house!" The key is going to be avoiding cliché as much as possible.

Follow me on twitter for more ramblings and inspiration searching: @ruthsedar
Anything work or writing related is always tagged #amwriting but I am also prone to rudeness, swearing, tangents, observations and everything else. What I'm trying to say is I talk a lot.

Spring cleanin'...gettin' ready to write.

After returning from the magical event at White Rabbit, my brain has been filled with excited noise and new ideas buzzing around.

I am, by nature, an extremely untidy person. Shoes remain where I kicked them off; papers go without filing for months; clothes are unceremoniously shoved in drawers and become a crumpled mess. Basically, I am a tidiness slut - in the original sense of the word, of course.

The only things in any order in my house are my books, films and music - a fact my boyfriend finds equally frustrating and hilarious. As a naturally tidy person, my incapability drives him up the wall. But my books, films and so on; those are perfectly arranged. Alphabetical and chronological to the last detail.

With this is mind, I've been trying to tidy my life up. I've put things away properly, thrown things away and recycled to my heart's content. Items without a home or purpose have been removed from the house, and I've tried to consider each item I am bringing in - even down to the last tin of tomatoes. I've found there's more room for ideas to sweep around in a tidy home. The ideas don't get clogged up in tangled cables, or jumbled up in laundry to be put away. They can flow about and imprint themselves on keyboards and in notebooks.

Spring cleaning is something I never thought I would enjoy. But here we are. The days are getting lighter, more sunshine is pouring through the windows and my brain is pouring onto the page.

Back to basics

A Christmas in retail is a terrifying creature. But realising it is 37 days into the New Year and having not written a damn thing since October - that's far more frightening.

Back to square one; a notebook and pen in every bag, on every journey. No excuses.

As I mentioned above, I haven't been writing. Not even writing about not writing, nor writing about anything at all. Life got in the way.

However, an unexpected thing has happened. I have become inspired again. You can expect further rambling updates of the progress of various projects. My main project is sitting pretty at 10,000 words and there's maybe another 20,000 to go before I can think about diving back in and killing my darlings.

Publication fears. Proof-reading terror. Prose and grammar fails, I hope you'll stick with me through it.