What's in a Name?

It was late, and as usual, the day had gone swimmingly well – for everybody else on the planet but me. No meteor had yet crashed into the earth, the delightful young leader of North Korea had refrained from killing any of his Army chiefs over the last few hours, and Brussels was slowly being forgotten – but within the confines of my brain, things were looking rather grim. It hadn’t been going too well between me and that little part of myself that we call the ‘inner voice’. You all know your inner voice – remember the last time you reached out for that one last peda, and inside your head you heard a voice go “Tsk tsk, somebody’s forgetting that they’re on a diet!” – that’s the one – that sometimes grovelling, sometimes screechy, but always annoying little voice, with its unlimited supply of unsolicited advice.

   Well, my inner voice and I had been having a little argument – the point of contention being the name for my new blog. It seems like a trivial thing to be conflicted about, and that is what I thought as well. But if the voice inside your head is anything like mine, you know what an irritating, self-righteous prick it can be. I say ‘it’, almost like it were a different entity, but that’s the bewildering thing about your inner voice – it sometimes makes you wonder if you haven’t been possessed by the spirit of that snotty kid you used to throw chalk at in school. I think we are genetically predisposed to ignore our inner voice – especially when it starts acting pricy. As for the matter of selecting a name for my new blog, I didn’t see why it should have anything to do with it – none of my inner voice’s business, as far as I could see.

Earlier that evening, I thought I had it all figured out, and life seemed simple. I knew exactly what this blog was going to be about – anything. And accordingly, the name for the blog sorted itself out – it could be anything. In other words, it didn’t really matter to me. I figured I’d just open a dictionary page at random and pick the first word I saw for the blog name. Something about the spontaneity and randomness of the process appealed to me. As for what I was going to write about in the blog – I figured that was something that would emerge organically through the writing process. It seemed to me the most obvious way. Satisfied, I sat back and reached for the Oxford mini dictionary.

At that exact moment my inner voice tsk-tsked audibly. This is the sort of inner voice behaviour you need to learn to ignore. But I have a weakness for tsk-tsks – one of those base and vulgar acts of passive aggression that I can’t stand, so despite my best efforts, I reacted. “Something the matter, you leaky boat?” I huffed. “You bet there is. Getting sharper aren’t you?” my inner voice shot back. ”It’s a blog, you pogo-stick, not a Dada poem!” Unnecessarily snarky, I thought. “Your point being?” I asked coldly. “Point being…” it intoned, “…that you haven’t thought this through. And your dictionary is just an excuse for being lazy!” This sort of talk hurts an upright man of character, and sometimes even people like me. I wasn’t going to tolerate it – this wanton self-criticism is uncalled for in an era of adorable cat pictures, so a few choice expletives later, I turned back to my dictionary, determined to ignore my inner voice and get on with work. I started flipping pages and writing down potential names. When I got to ‘epilepsy bathtub’, I stopped to ruminate. 

After two tormenting hours, things began to look bleak. I had imagined that settling on a blog name would be simple, but looking at the options I had in front of me, I felt myself cringing. ‘mitten poon’, right next to ‘spectacle abortion’ caught my eye and made me weep. No, things were not going as I imagined, and none of the options I had seemed appropriate. “Appropriate?” my inner voice suddenly sneered, out of the blue. “What do you mean by appropriate? I thought you said it could be ‘anything’! Then shouldn’t pretty much any name be appropriate?” The tone was gratingly condescending, and I wasn’t inclined to respond. But sometime past the witching hour, by which time my eyes had turned scarlet and my legs frozen in position, I grudgingly accepted that maybe my inner voice had a point:

It wasn’t a dada poem. But then, what was it? I spent the next few hours in daze, pretending to think. They say realization hits you hard, but for me it just crawled slowly up my legs. I knew I could name my blog anything, but I certainly wouldn’t be writing about anything and everything under the sun. As a human being, I could never escape my past experiences and my worldview – which are the essential things that shape one’s writing.

It dawned on me with a certain obviousness what my inspiration is. It comes from the reality that surrounds me – the City, my home. When I think about the City, it’s not any particular one, but the experience of life in any city – because the urban condition, that decidedly modern affliction, is common to all cities in the world. My life’s experiences are inextricably linked to the City and it’s streets, because I’ve always been a city slicker. For me, all the intricacies of human life – all the joys and tragedies are etched deeply into the walls of this human hive I inhabit.

    

As I sat and reflected, I noticed that I couldn’t feel my left leg, but what I should write about became clear – I wanted to record my encounters with the city. It was that simple. I grew up here, and over time the City had clutched on to my veins and seeped into my pores. I began to see in it the canvas of human experience– in all its wretchedness, sweetness, joy and despair. It has compelled me, repulsed me, comforted me and most of all taught me everything I know about life and the people of this world. The city is the fodder for my ruminations.

    Every city slicker knows that these streets are the veins that nourish our soul. They form the roots of our urban experience – feeding us with its histories and memories. In every street corner, every crumbling edifice and luxury apartment, in the reflective skyscrapers and sagging shanties – there is an unseen trembling, of a million beating hearts, their dreams and destinies all entwined, and dependant on the fate of the city that envelopes them. I looked out the window, and the sky had begun to turn pale. Birds screeched in the trees outside – the city was stirring. As my eyes followed the shadow of the milkman on his bicycle, I saw the invisible roots tying him down to the streets he rode on. It was certain now – I had to find my truth in these streets, and I knew I couldn’t do it with judgement or hypocrisy. What else should one write about but their personal observations?  The only way you are going to avoid the clichés is to look honestly at what your singular experiences were, and what it has given you.

    ‘These Streets have Roots’, I typed tentatively, watching the words as they appeared on the screen. Some things just sort themselves out. I folded up and put away the paper with all the dictionary words I’d compiled – some of them would make great band names someday. The night’s work had unexpectedly ended. As I rose and trudged wearily towards the bed, my inner voice finally made its presence felt, with a grudging grunt of approval. The beef will continue, but I know I can’t do without my inner voice  - so now finally there is peace, and I can carry on making butt jokes like I do.