I was just reading Lourd de Veyra's graduation speech for this year's UP MassComm graduates and I must say he hit a nerve in me. I've never been a fan of his and I don't really know much about him except that he's a witty writer/musician, but that speech is one of the most thought-provoking ones I've read in a while.
He talked about how lucky students are that information is so readily available via the internet... that there's no excuse for being an idiot nowadays when we can Google any topic in the known universe.
Unfortunately, that's exactly our problem -- there's just too much information. We're all overloaded with data, that sifting through everything is bogging us down. We are information-fatigued.
On the internet, everyone's a smartass. Everyone's a writer. Everyone's a blogger. I, for one, hate calling myself a blogger. The word makes my skin crawl. There's something vulgar about it that I can't really explain. I want to be called a writer... but I hardly write. Now that I rarely post here, I can't even be called a lousy blogger.
So here I am, nearly a decade on and I'm still looking for that niche writing style that I can claim for my own. However, being the scatterbrain that I am, I don't think that'll happen any time soon. Maybe if I look at my computer screen long enough, that elusive flash of inspiration will eventually show up?