There's a new meme floating around the blogosphere - the 30-Day Writing Challenge*. I first heard about it from fellow blogger John, who has started in with it on his blog, and I figured that, if nothing else, it would give me a few ideas for those days when no particular idea seems to leap out at me.
The Challenge gives you 30 topics, some of which are very interesting and others of which are pretty odd, but the one I thought I'd start with is #17: "A quote you try to live by." Those of you who have been with me for a while ought to know that one: it's Bilbo's First Law:
"Never let anyone else do your thinking for you."
In the current religious, social, and political atmosphere, it's all too easy to happily swallow the half-baked ideas that are shouted at us every day: by extremist preachers, screaming heads of talk radio and extreme TV, shameless advertising moguls, and true believers of all types. Today, more than ever, it's important to think critically and be skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but nowadays evidence tends to be based less on facts than on that which we really, really believe, whether it can be proven or not. You have to keep an open mind, but you have to be smart about it. As the author Terry Pratchett once wrote,
“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
And in the words of science fiction giant Isaac Asimov,
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”
On this, the first day of my somewhat irregular 30-day writing challenge, keep Bilbo's First Law in mind. I've found it to be a good, easy to remember quote to live by.
Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for the ceremonial anointing of the Left Cheek Ass Clown for October.
More thoughts then.
Bilbo
* I don't know how, or if, this relates to National Blog Posting Month (November), which I can never do anyhow, since we're almost always traveling at Thanksgiving time and I can never get all 30 days of posts.
5 comments:
Your first law provides a launching point for many of them, at least.
Best wishes on the 30-day Writing Challenge!
I guess one could spread the 30 days out over the year, right?
"In the current religious, social, and political atmosphere, it's all too easy to happily swallow the half-baked ideas that are shouted at us every day: by extremist preachers, screaming heads of talk radio and extreme TV, shameless advertising moguls, and true believers of all types."
Very well said, indeed. I wish it wasn't true. Bilbo's First Law is fundamental in changing things for the better.
What passes for wisdom might be overrated.
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