May 10th, 2010

The gray skies hanging over Nevada County today mirror my mood. It’s snowing in some parts of the area. Snowing! A quick look at my calendar confirms that it is indeed May. I thought something had happened and it might really be November. I was alerted to a nasty review of one of my books this morning. The day is off to a wonderful start. And yes I am completely aware of how much I sound like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Be that as it may, it was a particular harsh criticism and it got me to thinking – why is it that every single activity in our lives is subject to mean-spirited critique? Sports, pet training, home repair, snow removal, you name it somewhere there’s a cable show dedicated to ripping it. And I’m not saying there isn’t a place for solid intelligent constructive criticism, but when was the last time you read a review of something, a movie, a play, a book, that gave you a real feel for what the author was trying to say? Now of days you can only make a name for yourself if you’re a spiteful crank heaping scorn on a product your significant other was going to devote themselves to if you hadn’t have done it first. You know the kind of person I’m referring to – a poison tongued lard who refuses to review anything he likes because his praise mechanism was broken when his father wouldn’t buy him an easy-bake over for his 10th birthday. There are those people in life who think they need to tell you what you like. The key thing to remember about critics is that they remain dependent on the innovator, the person doing the real work creating. And because they just sit on the sidelines of life, and are never the hunter, they are doomed to be forgotten. But we give them the power because the sheer speed of their existence has further tattered our already fragile confidence. I say, you like the Red Skelton painting?buy the Red Skelton painting. You like Bonanza tape it and watch it over and over again. Follow your own heart and take what critics say with a fifty pound bag of salt. That is unless it’s a great review – in which case everything I’ve just noted is null and void.