I hate writing!

There, I said it. Writing is definitely not one of my favorite things to do. Not that I'm bad at it. On the contrary, I've had people tell me most of my life that I have a gift for writing. I've had people suggest I get more into writing, that I could be very successful as a writer. But God do I hate the actual process.

I'm currently working on a paper for my Urban Education class that's due tomorrow night. It's not a particularly tough paper (compared to writing scientific journal articles it's a cakewalk, albeit with very different "rules") but it's the process of organizing my thoughts and shaping them into a coherent whole that gets me. The paper is supposed to be on my frame of references regarding urban areas and urban education. Which I'm interpreting as describing how events in my life have shaped my views and preconceptions on urban education. It doesn't help that I'm a perfectionist, and I constantly worry, and reread, and edit, trying to fit my writing into my perfect ideal of what it "should" be. Which frequently involves trying to read the instructors mind, with variable ammounts of success. I'll get it done (though it may involve working till 1am tonight, my schedule being what it is) and it'll most likely be good, but I still hate the process.

Which brings me to my next point, using words like "hate". We had a discussion in class on this topic, based on our readings in the text "Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life". The book states that suburban, middle class children use words like hate far more often than working class and poor children. Okay, that fits in with my experience. I use the word hate all the time, see the title of this post. I consider hate to be a relatively mild word. Now when I use words like "loathe", "detest" and "despise" you can assume I *really* mean it. But in class we discussed how in poorer areas words like hate are considered inappropriate because, to many people, poor equals black/minority and, being frequent victims of hate (why are racially-based offenses referred to as "hate crimes"?), minorities charge the word hate with meaning that is absent in more affluent, whiter communities. One of my classmates made a nice post summarizing the discussion in her blog.


But while I can understand intellectually where the belief is coming from, I don't really agree with charging words like hate with extra meaning. Now I'll admit to being a nice middle class white boy who has never faced discrimination and hate the way many minorities have. But I've always believed that words only have the power you give them. There are a lot of "charged" words out there. Just look at George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't say on TV! (Obviously, bad language and NSFW!) I think making a big deal over words actually encourages kids to use them, because they're "more adult". Growing up for me, profanity was strictly prohibited. I swore like a sailor, at least when my mom wasn't around, cause that's what grown ups and "cool" people did. Or so I believed.


In my opinion and based on my experiences, reacting to and making a big deal about words, behaviors and actions that bother you frequently (but there are of course exceptions) encourages people to continue with the objectionable behavior. Ignoring it or acting like it isn't a big deal reduces the power of the word or behavior and removes a lot of the incentive people have for using the word.


But that's just my personal opinion.