Double Dare: From Idle to Idol

Remember those relay races in grade school? Tell me you guys did this. My kids don't seem to do this at all at their school, the thing where you separate all the kids into two teams and they get in line and take turns running down, around something, back up again to tap the next kid who repeats the process, usually with an egg on the spoon hanging out of their mouth or some idea Double Dare used in their show, and then of course the first team to get all the kids through it wins. What do they win? Bragging rights.

Meanwhile the losers feel like losers. There's always the one mouthy brat blaming the least popular kid on their team for the loss. The kids who win have mixed feelings of "Ha in your face we won it" and "I kind of feel guilty because the losers look so sad." You know, the same feelings you can feel by looking at the face of people who win the reality contests on television like America's Got Talent, or duh duh dummmm American Idol.

The thing with any competition from Olympics to a singing contest, someone is being judged, and all of us are judging them. Really, if these people wanted to receive judgment for their abilities, they could just start going to church.

I told you people I was gangsta. Eye roll please!

Like church, competitions are really a place where MANY of the people judging (NOT ALL) have no room to judge. Just like the little brat blaming the less popular guy, there are people who can't even lace their own ice skates sitting at home telling the television about the professional ice skaters who skate 12 plus hours daily for years, as if watching the movie The Cutting Edge makes them experts.

I'm really not a "competition" type of gal. Don't get me wrong. I'm somewhat competitive, mainly against myself and the smart people from school; oh wait, I am a smart person from school. That explains a lot.

(You just witnessed an epiphany)

But the thing is, competitions generally judge based on popularity or randomness. We the people decide based on what we consider norm, based on our truths that we hold evident. It's not usually based on actual talent or skill. This isn't just reserved for reality television series designed to up ratings by providing the right amount of asshattery to attract viewership. Even scholarships are based on this concept, no matter how hard someone may try to NOT make it about that. It's human nature really. Theoretically, the more you listen to me ramble, the more anyone is going to think, "Why do this? Why bother?"

Because God works in mysterious ways. That's why. Because no matter how much negative hype these competitions receive, people improve as a result of it. People grow through the chaos somehow. People who deserved to win still win because they were part of something. Because the experience helps them adapt and find new ways to succeed. Many find who they are through these things. You will rarely meet people who were part of a competition, who lost, who fell on their face and failed in inappropriate, unimaginable ways, say they wish they never entered the thing in the first place. Very mysterious.

(BTW, I'm totally aware that "Because blah blah blah..." is an incomplete sentence. It's actually a dependent clause. I don't care that I wrote it like a sentence. In my best Icona Pop voice, which kind of sounds like a constipated horse getting fingered in the butt by a veterinarian with a hangnail... 

I don't care. I love it.) 

And the judging, sometimes we need to be judged. Sometimes our self assessments suck. Sometimes we need someone on a high horse to trot into our lives and stir the shit pot in our brains just a little.

I need the shit pot in my brain stirred. Desperately. I'm idle. The car that is running but going nowhere. 

(a lot of phrases there masquerading as sentences)

After all this thinking about quitting this blog,

(read about it here where I explain my current writing style and why it is interfering with my dream of being a superblogger, like a supermodel, but sexier)

I think what I really need to do is get back to the basics. It's kind of like when you are lost in whatever stressful world you are in, a nice hike in the natural elements is sometimes all you need to find your center again. In the world of writing, getting back to the basics is that hike into nature. Basic sentence structure is the dirt and rocks under your feet. Adjectives are the color green you found on that one tree and the crisp you smelled in the air. Story structure is the landscape view you stared in awe at for a few minutes wishing you had a canvas and some paints with you.

I need to get back to the basics to remind myself that I am a writer, not an entertainer. I've been attempting the entertainer role lately, and that's throwing off my game. 

Part of getting back to the basics is assignments. Homework. I need a teacher to assign me tasks and grade me on it. I might of found that teacher. Maybe I didn't. Who knows? But if I get involved in this, I will be forced to get back to the basics. I know for a fact, I will grow from it just like everyone else who gets involved in these things do. It's not my usual style, but sometimes we must venture out of our comfort zone to discover something we couldn't find otherwise.

BLOGGER IDOL

As created by the amazing My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream

What can you win? They have some prizes worth money that sound neat, but what can you win? Have you been reading? The internets. Duh. No, you can win something more amazing than the prizes they advertise.

You COULD win

Self Actualization. 

How cool would that be to win some personal growth and self-fulfillment? Provided by people who obviously transcended. 

Thank you people for transcending.  

Maybe it's not in the stars for me. I can't imagine why these people would ever pick me for it honestly. So I'm kind of going into this as "If God wants me to do it, it will happen, but most likely, it won't happen because it would take an act of God to make it happen."

This contest is designed for good writers. I suck at writing. If you read my blog at all, you should know this. I can dish out an article about how to wear your ankle boots (I have never worn a pair of ankle boots in my entire life, shhhhh don't tell anyone) that will pass editor's approval, but I wrote alongside people who didn't speak English as a first language, so I kind of had that advantage. Yes I can write in that sense. But when it comes to "should I write a book?" maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I would be the Taylor Swift of writing where the only reason I'd ever make it in this world is because I used a gimmick like emotional appeal (I'd probably have to use a different gimmick). Toni Morrison, I am not.

You would never believe I read Toni Morrison, TS Eliot, and Goethe by reading what I write. 

Speaking of TS Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock asks, "Do I dare? And, do I dare?"

"Do I dare disturb the universe?"

Do you?

I say I DOUBLE DARE myself. If you blog at all, I double dare you to join me.

In fact, if you would rather, or if you don't make it in the top 12 to go with it, throw me a message and we'll do it too but not IN it. We can do the assignments with them and critique each other, even if we are a step behind them.

Regardless of who you are, you should check it out. Looking at some of the archived posts, it appears you vote as well. Regardless, I'm sure watching it will provide some amazing reads, and you may find another blogger who you idolize enough to subscribe to their posts.

In conclusion,

And if you are going to do it, you might as well do it well.

Ok. That's more about sex than blogging, but LL. Eye Candy. You're welcome.