Make Sense Who May. I Switch Off.

I started writing columns after I got angry. The Spectator opinion board at the time had refused to sign a letter condemning the removal of the University of Southern California newspaper’s editor-in-chief by the school’s administration, and I responded by flying off the handle in a blog’s comment section at 3 a.m. When I woke up, I knew I’d said something terribly stupid, which isn’t particularly rare in my case, and apologized. That apology made me think about committing to stop being part of the problem, and so I applied to write this column from the floor of an apartment in Somerville, Mass., in Jan. 2007. (Later that evening, on that same apartment floor, I learned that my friends enjoy changing my Facebook “looking for” settings to “men” and “whatever I can get” if I leave myself logged in, but that’s a different story.)

Transitioning from flying off the handle to attempting a reasoned argument—or at least shedding light on an issue—in about 800 to 900 words certainly made me think long and hard about what it was I wanted to write about. With the help and coaching of the tireless Opinion editors (thanks, editors), strengths, weaknesses, and patterns emerged (turns out I like to use parenthetical asides, alliteration, and lists—to say nothing of hyphenation—quite a bit). My eagerness to take cheap swings with a few witticisms and a lot of hyperbole gave way as the 800 words every other week made me pick each idea carefully and develop it, cutting, pasting, and rewriting.

In a time where you can lash out online without fear of repercussion, there’s something to be said for the limitations of print space. It forces you to be concise, and, if you want your article to be read with some semblance of seriousness before getting flipped over so the reader can do the sudoku during their lecture class, vaguely coherent. That’s not to say that there aren’t sincere and talented bloggers out there or hack print columnists for that matter, but putting yourself under restrictions forces you to choose your thoughts carefully.

In general, I find limitation to force a creative person to make intriguing choices. This column’s name, “What Where,” is taken from Samuel Beckett’s last play, and Beckett himself was the master of subtractions and limitations, reducing the tools of his craft to amplify his message. Every review I’ve read of a White Stripes album gets a dig or two in at Meg White’s drumming, yet the spareness and simplicity of the two-piece band spawned several hit singles and legions of followers. The art of the Russian suprematist movement, with its careful constructions of geometric shapes and colors, is simultaneously alien and familiar, accessible and remote. Choosing a medium with certain rules and structures makes a person labor especially hard to communicate his or her point.

With every single band in the world now on MySpace and every single political commentator with a loud opinion or five dutifully punching away on blogs and comment sections across the web—to say nothing of the streams of artists making sites dedicated to drawing video game characters in revealing outfits—there’s never been a better time to be derivative or bland, and there’s almost never any compromises to be made. Want to write a 5,000-word, obscenity-laced tirade against a mysterious conspiracy theory group of your choice? Go right ahead. (And welcome to the Ron Paul campaign!) Eager to put up your heartfelt cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”? Go for it! Maybe if you label it as “XXX Hallelujah HOTT” on YouTube you’ll get 213 views instead of 85. Don’t want criticism? Turn the comments off.

I don’t want to sound like my platform for producing output, this column, is somehow inherently more valid than a YouTube video or a blog due to its limitations and status as a printed work. You might have already flipped over to the sudoku by now for all I know, and when you go home maybe you’ll watch a 24-year-old Mike Gravel supporter from Oregon talk online about how the youth vote is never really appealed to because no one really wants to seriously address youth issues like education. But making choices, compromises, and accepting criticism, are things we can easily dispose of online when we speak out, and it’s not always a great trade-off. It reflects politically as well: notice how those “anyone but candidate-that-I-hate” sentiments are rising? If you can say whatever you want, whenever you want, with no repercussions, it’s hard not to fall into those angry patterns unless you make choices and limit yourself.

Of course, I’m not an artist. Or, for that matter, really a columnist. I was just an angry kid who did something wrong and decided to apologize for it and wound up here. I’m very grateful for this opportunity, and if you’ve made it through this, or any of my other columns, thank you. I’d strongly encourage you to speak up if you’ve got opinions of your own. Think before you type, select your medium, make strong choices (what is this, an acting class?), listen to your audience, and go for it. Thanks again.

Chas Carey is a Columbia College senior majoring in political science and American studies. What Where runs alternate Wednesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com