Standards and Other Tunes

San Francisco is filled with writers. Or to be more accurate, San Francisco seems to be filled with people who fancy themselves writers. The only standard here for being a writer is the desire to call yourself one. The only skill you seem to require is the ability to string together a couple of coherent sentences. Or maybe a polysyllabic word... San Francisco is a lot like LA when you think about it. In LA, everybody is an actor. You meet a waitress or a bartender and they'll tell you that they're actually an actor. Here in SF, it's exactly the same except with writing.

Now, maybe I'm being a hard ass but I think standards matter. I published my first article in a national magazine when I was 22. I've perhaps 2 dozen pieces of work strewn out through different national magazines. Still, I don't consider myself a writer. If anything, I'm a philosopher who uses words as his medium for communication for lack of a better method. I've always felt limited by language. That probably has to do with my lack of facility more than anything. I wonder if men like Hitchens feel the same way. A writer is someone like my friend John Hessen. He has written speeches for the UN and for President Clinton. He's a writer. A writer is my friend Lee Smith who is also a vigorous thinker. His way with words often shame to silence.

I recently had to fire an individual in my employ. I let him go for several reasons but primarily, it was because he couldn't do what he said he could do. He majored in English in college. Specifically in poetry. He constantly talked about writing and seemed to be genuinely interested in the topic. I had no reason to believe he could not write. Needless to say, I was shocked at how poorly he actually wrote. It wasn't just substandard. It was complete garbage. I remember looking at his work and thinking that a 5th grader could do better. Yet, this person fancies himself a writer. Tellingly, he told me that he showed his work to several people and they assured him that is work was of professional quality. English must not have been their first language.

This trend is distressing. I personally didn't feel comfortable calling myself a fighter until I was in my 30's. And I started the martial arts when I was 6. I started competing internationally when I was 15. I've spent my entire life fighting in the dojo and in the streets. Yet, it wasn't until I reached a certain level of proficiency that I could give myself the title of "fighter" without embarrassment.

This is all just to say that standards matter. You can't just say you are something because you like the idea. If we all started to do that, then nothing would mean anything. Words used to have an empirical meaning. C.S Lewis wrote about the day when being called a gentleman meant something more than the fact that the speaker thought positively of you. It used to mean something tangible. Now it's just a matter of opinion. I think being a writer should be something observable. Otherwise, it is meaningless.