Robin Williams put forth this phrase used as my node title while playing the role of Mr. Keating during the movie
Dead Poets Society. In what will probably turn out to be a long ass node (which I'm hopefully becoming known for, good or bad), I'll make an honorable attempt to somewhat curb any bad
blood associated with
poetry nodes.
Lets run through a quick idea called "
Codic quietly and thoroughly stalked every noder who contributed to E2 within a time frame of the last two months". The premise is simple. If you've ever noded anything in the last two months, I've read your stuff about twenty nodes in from your highest rep. Have you written something clever or interesting in your
homenode? I've read it, followed your links, gone through whatever info provided there, and quietly shelved an opinion of you and your own special magical yang.
God help you if you listed a
homepage(s). Cause then it's a sure bet that I've visited, read the whole thing (even up to and including your amazing technical detail on
computer equipment to
tampon purchasing to
seg faulting nightmares), and followed any links contained there. Yes, even the links to your friends' pages. Go ahead, ask me if I have a life. I'm a shameless mother fucker on a mission from God, baby. I've seen college pictures, prom pictures, pet dog photos and webcam stills of some of you guys. My general thoughts on the inhabitants of E2?
If not all of you, then a large majority of you are amazing and REALLY TRULY AMAZING. Some of you node so well that I'd be hard pressed to guess your age in
meatspace. E2 seems like a young adult's game to me, yet so many of you express feelings and intelligence way beyond your years. Some of you are
geniuses in my eyes. If not for your relentless
factual noding (which if you don't know, impresses the shit out of prose noders like me), then for your kitchy take on
humanity and the world. Sometimes the fact noders get the final thumbs up, though. They get such little props here that I bet they hold a grudge to the whole karma &
C! thing sometimes.
Which brings me to a point. I've noticed a rather harsh look to poetry nodes at times. Ok therrre Charlie, one sec. Again, before you kick my puppy while screaming of the database practicality and superior significance of factual w/u's vs. poems let me have a say in it. It may be that the
prose,
poetry, and
memoir writers have an edge on the group as a whole. I read a fair share of blunt knowledge base stuff vs. 'fun' nodes, but I can see how one might not use a half/half technique as I do when voting on nodes (5 votes for facts, 5 for non-factual). Some people might only vote on things that make them laugh or remember shitty love experiences (which I've noticed is
pretty fucking popular). Maybe some noders don't realize the ever so subtle goodness of learning a new fact enough to vote it up. Stupidity is a horrible thing, and maybe we should throw some glamour to the minority of factual noders that bless us with attempts to stymie the ever looming '
cloud of dumbassness'. Is it unfair to equate
rep with significance? Damn right it is (If I owned a
shotgun, I'd blow a hole through my ceiling to enunciate this point). Lucky for E2, the factual noders have some funky-ass
Jedi mentality thing with their work.
They do it not for fame or glory, or some shit. Hey, word is bond, yo. I got mad love for these dawgs. I bet the E2 ladiez think you're stoopid hot, too. Vice versa for the female factual noding contingent. Cause well.. facts are sexy when you get right down to it.
I don't write poetry. I tried it once and blew my trick knee out right there at my computer. There was some major ligament damage and it was Doctor's orders to stick with ass long prose pieces. Yet I still think I'm coming from the same place as
poets and
journalists. Because, for as bad or as good as the final outcome of our creative process, we're all striving to verbally contain and capture just a little piece of the remarkable chutzpah that makes humanity different from the beasts. Though no one asked us too, and we never felt obliged, a lot of people on this thing still wear their heart pinned to their sleeve on a daily basis. You ever read that node on rape survivors? Holy shit. It doesn't necessarily demand some honored position at the grand royal round table of Everything2's greatest noders, but it shouldn't count as some noding deficiency either. The only real mark of
humanity, other than our gift for mathematical and scientific comprehension, is our ability to express intimate emotions that don't just revolve around food gathering and animalistic survival instinct.
Love-anger-
hope-denial-
retribution-mania-sadness-joy-
sexuality-de dum de dum de doo.
It goes on and on, our little society's big bag 'o' emotional repertoire.
I know I know, gag suppressants will be passed out to the general audience soon, you
sarcastic evil sons of bitches*. It's your fair prerogative to shun another human's attempt at gleaning off a more enlightened view of how they feel, sure. Who knows, maybe it's just a shitty-ass poem after all and deserves the nuke. But maybe you critics of poem nodes should think about the bigger picture of E2 and non-factual write ups. I hear this a lot, from both sides of the node river:
"
Node for the ages."
"What if a higher power came to judge us by our write-ups? How would our precious database fare against their assessment? Would our content be significant?"
"
Do you really want that node to be there twenty years from now?"
Poetry IS noding for the ages. It IS significant. Humanity finds validation through
math and
sciences, of course. But the drive and inner empowerment to continue through mental blockades, bad logic, and fatigue is altogether coming from a very creative, poetic, and emotional place. Science, mathematics, and experimentation are gestures of society's attempt to understand themselves and their interaction with life all around. Well shit bro, poetry is no different.
We don't write poems because it's cute. I don't write prose because it makes me happy and smooshy inside. People don't journalize horrible experiences for the utter joy of providing huge windows into their own personal shame and guilt. Don't
cry us a fucking river or anything. I'm a big, fat kid. I kick-box five times a week and find more than enough emotional support from the ever relaxing repetitions of kicking people about the stomach and crotch regions. You don't know therapy till you've parried a
jab cross hook counter with a tai-style
roundhouse kick to your opponents'
centerline. But don't belittle our creative content either. Some people find inner peace with crypto theory and Unix
storage class modifiers. Other people kill the voices in their head with poems, stories, or journal entries. Either way, you still wake up the next day a better person. And be it a creative or fact node, E2 is equally enhanced as well.
Hey asshole, but what about
shitty poems? This is just hyped up vocabulary and sentence structure to fog our vision from the willy-nilly ways some noders throw words together and call it art.
I hate you Codic, and I'm gonna firebomb your house you sloppy-ass bitch. If you have a girlfriend, I'm gonna fuck her too.
I swear to Jesus, some noders are this emotional. I can almost respect someone with that kind of protective mothering of the database. ALMOST.
I relate the outcome of bad poem nodes to the same conclusion that bad factual nodes should have. Nuke it or rewrite. We're all smart here, dammit. We've got to stop taking this obvious fact for granted. Have some decency and give a poem a fair chance. Kill it for good reasons only, ok you little scamps? I'll even help you
softlink hatred to the node if some little bleeding heart tries to get away with a three word 'poem' or whatever.** Same thing goes with fact write ups. Please don't give another Simpson's related write up the benefit of the doubt without actually reading it (Oh yes these do count as factuals. Don't make me sick my
puppy on you over this). I've seen so many lackluster attempts of people trying to capture the ingenious hilarity of that show:
-And. Then. Homer. Gets. Hit. With. A. Hammer. He is yellow. And he screams. It is funny.
Just as poems try to be good (read: attempt but not always find success) and elicit some response from a reader, fact write ups should be just as engaging. Noding your math homework can be cool, dammit. Just give it some pep. Didn't we all watch fucking
3-2-1 CONTACT or MATH blaster on public television when we were freaking little kids?! Don't you remember how cool math and science were on those shows? Respect, bitch.
*Hey
Dawg, I'm just playin'. It's like when a guy calls his good friend of many years a
penile implant or something at a bar {cough}. That's just how men form everlasting bonds of respect and affection. Or something.
**Don't softlink or ever help others softlink as comments. It's like kicking nice old people to death and running away with their orthopedic left shoe.
What's the point in either?