What Are Ya Gonna Do?

via GIPHY

Yup, big Sopranos fan here. That line of Tony's, "What are ya gonna do?" has become my mantra as of late. The world is insane, there are far too many idiots running loose, and there seems no end to it. I used to write about that sort of thing from time to time, the occasional rant as it were, but life is too short to worry and fret about the stuff you can't control.

So yeah, "What are ya gonna do?"

So, the other day my natural curiosity about certain things drove me to look up the word "idiot." I use it a lot, especially in the car, so I decided to see what its origin was.

Idiot is a word derived from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs ("person lacking professional skill", "a private citizen", "individual"), from ἴδιος, idios ("private", "one's own"). In ancient Greece, people who were not capable of engaging in the public sphere were considered "idiotes", in contrast to the public citizen, or "polites" (πολίτες). In Latin the word idiota ("ordinary person, layman") preceded the Late Latin meaning "uneducated or ignorant person". Its modern meaning and form dates back to Middle English around the year 1300, from the Old French idiote ("uneducated or ignorant person").

...

An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs. Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education. In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). "Idiot" originally referred to a "layman, person lacking professional skill". Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid". (Source)

Quite honestly, I think the Greeks were on to something there.

About writing a book, or three...

Putting together a blog post takes two to three hours a day, on average. (Yes, even the crappy ones take that long.) I really enjoy this blogging thing, it's therapeutic, fun (for the most part), and every now and then I learn something. (Look into a topic and see all the stuff one didn't know.) While I truly enjoy having Juvat cover Mondays, with Tuna the occasional Tuesday (or a Monday double post), if I don't blog for a couple of days I get antsy, I need to blog, I think I'm addicted to it. (Cheaper and healthier than smoking, go ahead, ask me how I know.)

So I need to do this. Which takes time away from actually writing something that no one will see the next day. Truly, I enjoy the feedback I get from you, the readers, in the form of comments and page hits. I've been doing this long enough to recognize when the spambots have come to visit, page hits go through the roof. Normally it runs between 500 and 700 a day.

So yesterday, I indulged myself in a little fictional exercise, I didn't really have a good topic to write about and the dream mentioned in that post provided a starting point. I really enjoyed doing that. So yeah, somehow I need to make time to write that book. Even if it's just a paragraph a day, I need to start it.

After all, I don't want to make Valory wait until I retire and Wayward Sailor is itching to proofread/edit any offering I might produce.

So yes, I'm working on it, I'm not going to wait until I retire (December 2019 is the current plan), and I really want to gain fame and fortune.

Or at least be able to say, "Hey, I wrote a book."


What are ya gonna do?





Write a book is the correct answer to that last question.