Contemplation

I have so far been successful in avoiding the horrible events that some have decided to present us during such a festive time. I have also deliberately refrained from writing about it, mainly because I refuse to jump in amongst idiots to end up with a pointless row.

However, glancing so swiftly at the newspapers and some blogs these past few days to notice the (not so) pleasant news about our (not so) safe Bahrain, a thought revisited me since it last did when I had started a “straight-forward-times” blog. Perhaps people could do with a “good news” reporter, or, quite disturbingly yet so plausibly, people could do with a “bad news” reporter. I reckon that readers wouldn’t be satisfied either way, not the Bahraini public at least.

Why? Because “good news” will be regarded as being spin-doctored and “bad news” will be regarded as being incitive. Because the majority of Bahrainis have some sort of extreme neurotic attributional bias; i.e. if its good then its because of internal factors (because of us), and if its bad then its because of external factors (because of them). The majority’s thinking is logically flawed by the lack of subjectivity, bias, historical hatred and narcissism.

I snapped out of it, and thought to myself of how pointless it would be to try and report good news (or even bad news) to the public. Its already hard to find “good things” to cover, and bad news will only be taken any way but constructively.

I started feeling some depressive mood creeping in, but then I was save by another thought, derived from my passion for linguistics and communication. “People need dialogue!!”, I so simply figured. Perhaps the public could do better with hearing what they, only so far, think is the opposite opinion.

Scrutiny is ever so unresolvable when it comes to news of events, incidents, and happenings. It is less problematic when we have dialogue. We can simply talk some more. I don’t think we’ll have a problem there, for all we do is talk.

Do you have something to say?

I’ve almost completely stopped reading newspapers, and some blogs for that matter, and instead long for the more interesting and personal conversations I have with people when we meet for coffee.

This is because I feel that the material I read in newspapers and in some blogs is somewhat dull. The reason for this is not because they are not interesting (although most aren’t quite often), but because the platform they are contained within is not engaging enough; it is just not stimulating enough.

I have a passion for the written word, make no mistake in thinking otherwise, but I can’t help but remain reserved with it in some specific situations. I, for example, love the idea of text messaging and sending emails from a fancy gadget that one keeps in their pockets, but I get quite frustrated when there’s meaning beyond the text to be conveyed, I think it is ought to be spoken and heard. It doesn’t help when one is predispositioned to think that meaning extends words all the time.

Same goes for newspaper and blog material. Although authors proudly include their names on by-lines, their stories and articles rarely show minimal authenticity. Some think that going with a picture, so as it would presumably speak a thousand words, is witty, however, they fail to relate to it in any possible way. Even some readers’ letters and blog comments lack a justified reason of existence, where readers write disgraceful plea letters and blog commentators write “hmm.. interesting.. thanks for posting..” comments without any useful input.

Sometimes I find myself without a topic that interests me to write about. What I do then is follow a rule: “when writers have nothing to write about, they should go kill themselves”. Of course, I do not follow it literally, however, the thought of a defined solution for such a problem will probably result in the writer’s defiance, and thus provide material that is most dear to the writers themselves, their biography.

Comment is free by the way. Tell me what you think of this.