Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Show Me Now

A quotation is a handy thing to have about,
saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself,
always a laborious business.
- A. A. Milne

You know I love a juicy quotation, dear readers.  After all, I have a whole "musings and mantras" label on this blog!  I even Instagrammed one yesterday.  But I have to tell you that I'm feeling a backlash against inspirational sayings.

Okay, that's not entirely true.  I have no problem with the quotes themselves, and I'm obviously guilty of using them all the time.  What I'm getting irritated by is the seeming over-reliance on these borrowed thoughts.  At this time of year, holiday wishlists alternate on many lifestyle blogs with posts either reflecting on the past year or looking ahead to 2014, and almost every single one includes an inspirational line from a writer or philosopher or religious figure that, in most cases, the blogger discovered while searching for "quote about ambition" or whatever on Google.  (Like I said, I'm totally guilty of having done this before, though I actually have read some of If I May, the series of essays from which the above A.A. Milne line was taken.)  But even that doesn't get at the root of what frustrates me; you don't have to be familiar with a wise person for his or her wise words to strike a chord with you.  Here's what it is, I think:

I feel like I keep seeing the same quotes shared in a never-ending loop by the same bloggers.  Of course it makes sense to use deep thoughts to motivate us because inspirational words at the end of a year are an organic quantification of how we've grown and they're an obvious launching pad at the beginning of a year as we set off to accomplish new goals.  But when the same lines are used repeatedly, the words become empty.  They lose their meaning.  When I notice that the same sorts of quotes being published on a blog over the course of months or even years, I wonder if the blogger is actually taking any lessons from her own posts.  It makes me think of a song from My Fair Lady where Eliza Doolittle, faced with continued declarations of love from Freddy, tells him, "Sing me no song, read me no rhyme / don't waste my time, show me!"

As you know, one of the reasons I love blogging is because of the support the community provides no matter what sort of encouragement we might need.  And I absolutely get that it can be easier to ask for help through a tough situation by appropriating another's words; often, we're sharing these quotes not for our readers but rather to inspire ourselves as we blog about them.  At a certain point, though, we need to stop relying on them.  Eventually we need to go beyond repeating motivational sayings and we need to put them into practice.  As Eliza sings, "Tell me no dreams filled with desire / if you're on fire, show me!"

Meaningful quotes are everywhere.  But what I've learned from this year is that finding the inspiration within yourself is a hundred times more powerful than any quotation.  Like I said, I'm guilty of using them, too, and I do think that they can provide a productive framework for understanding what you might be going through and how you'd like to come out on the other side.  But, at the end of the day, they're just words.  We're here for whatever support you might need, but a quote will only get you started.  After that, you have to find the motivation inside yourself.

So show me.


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18 comments:

  1. I can't wait to see the discussion that comes from this post (truly)....

    My own thoughts on it- I agree that you see a LOT of bloggers using quotes (or, ahem, scripture passages) to start their posts, and I just think that for a lot of them, this is part of the "blogging formula". You see them on Pinterest- articles that suggest types of posts to post during the week, and no doubt one is always "inspirational quote". I've used it myself as a way to get started on deep thoughts. I always thought that there were bloggers who did this so well, and then there were some that were just using the quote for quote's sake.

    But the amount of inspirational quotes I see on blogs, Pinterest, and in my Facebook and Instagram feeds is astounding and I agree that if you are just spouting words then are you really taking in their meaning? It might make the person feel uplifted for a moment, but is it really lasting? Are you taking it to heart?

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  2. I too feel that there has been a deluge of quotes online recently. What I find frustrating is that so many are vague and unrealistic ideas that make people feel inadequate. Most things along the lines of "live everyday to the fullest" while that is great in theory I find it is just not practical as everyday life does have the opportunity to hold great things it also involves dishes, and laundry and bills. So when you are plastering those ideas everywhere in pink and gold it helps spur on dissatisfaction with what is real I think.

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  3. I hope a good discussion does result because I expect that not everyone will agree!

    actually, I love it when bloggers use quotes (or scripture) as a starting point for their thoughts in a post. but then I want to read actual exploratory thoughts! just posting a graphic of an inspirational quote doesn't tell me anything about the blogger, you know?

    and, as I said to Megan (Freckled Italian) this morning, if I see the same quote (or one with a similar meaning) on a blog on 12/31/13 as I saw on 1/1/13, I'm going to wonder, as you say, if the blogger really took in the meaning of the quote. without an explanation in the post how why that quote is still relevant or how their understanding of the quote has changed over the past year, I'm going to feel like the blogger is wasting my time.

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  4. yes so true - even the "find meaning in the small things" sorts of quotes are too abstract if you don't connect them with your life!

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  5. Apart from a line or two of PG Wodehouse or Oscar Wilde (usually flippant), I totally hate quotations. I find them totally trite and I always ignore them and skip to the bit where the author or blogger starts their own words. Partly because we've heard it before, but mostly because the magic and meaning of the words are in their context. When you recontextualise, you lose the thing that made the words resonate in the first place.

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  6. If there's one thing I can't deal with in the blogging world, it's when everyone is writing about the same thing, and EVEN WORSE when nobody puts their own perspective on it. I really do like it when someone posts a quote and writes their post around how it personally relates to their life--but yes, seeing random quotes that have been all dolled up through photoshop or picmonkey doesn't mean anything to me. I'm more of a song lyric person, myself, and I might write something about them when they are particularly meaningful.

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  7. I will admit to liking pretty quotes :) but they have to connect to the blogger or I'll think they're simply words used to give reasons a certain impression without anything substantial behind it!

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  8. YES and I totally agree! that's why I reread books from my childhood over and over again - I discover something new in the pages every time :) but if I just see a quote without any context more than once on a blog, I want to know how the blogger's understanding of the words have changed. I read blogs to connect to bloggers and I want to support them in times of need, but I can't connect or support if the bloggers doesn't share their interpretation with their readers.

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  9. oh my goodness, me too! but there's a difference between looking in the mirror and repeating something affirming to yourself every morning (as I do!) and then going about and trying to put it into practice, and sharing a quote in a public forum without telling us how it affects your life and how you put it into practice. you know?

    and I CAME SO CLOSE TO PUTTING THAT IN THE POST! haha. that and "put your money where your mouth is" :)

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  10. Yea so true. I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but it seemed SO fitting!

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  11. I showed my frustration with the whole famous quotes and twitterverse earlier in the year, when I pointed out that everyone misattributes, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Way too many people claim Marilyn Monroe or Eleanor Roosevelt said this, when it was actually Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I wouldn't care so much about the over-abundance of bloggers and pinners and twitterers throwing around quotes if they were all real quotes, properly cited. I try to find multiple sources for famous quotes before sharing them on my blog, facebook, or twitter, although I am guilty of repinning quotes without fact-checking them...

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  12. Finding the inspiration within ourselves is indeed more powerful. It's something that I've been struggling with lately but am desperately working on. Quotes and mantras can only get us so far, we have to actually follow them through x

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  13. Lovely post! I'm not very good with words, so when I have to write something meaningful I do confess to hunting through google for something that sums up what I want to say in a better way than I ever could. Or asking hubby, as he has such a way with words!

    Not something I do very often, but on some occasions, especially those where words fail, I will look to quotes from those more eloquent than myself :)

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  14. yeah, but no one knows who Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is - MM and ER sound much more impressive! ... which just makes me think that the bloggers who share these quotes just want to be associated with impressive people without, you know, actually doing anything relevant to those historical figures and their words.

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  15. oh man, it's SO much easier said than done! but I get really into the blogs I read - as you know - and I want my engagement to mean something. you can't always share your inner struggles online, but, as a reader, I'd much rather see (and support!) "going through some tough stuff right now; be back when my head's not spinning" than a deep quote from someone famous that's been dolled up in Photoshop with the caption "THINKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW." is that unfair of me? it might be...

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  16. far wiser men and women than we have already found the best words, I think! and sometimes we totally need to hear how someone else has explained what we're going through to understand it ourselves. but, even when that's the case, I feel more able to support and encourage when I know how/why it's relevant to the blogger sharing the quote - otherwise it's too abstract!

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  17. I don't think so. I mean, it kind of glosses over everything and makes things a pretty pity party (that was a tad bitchy, I apologize). For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was going through some stuff and didn't have the head space to deal with my blog, so I wrote a post that basically said, "gotta deal with life, I'll be back in a few days', done, end of story. I certainly didn't feel like scouring the internet for an inspirational message and making it sparkly. Sure it would have looked pretty on the blog, but I was too busy ACTUALLY dealing with stuff.

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