Attribution & Exactitude
I am at the age where Attribution and Exactitude are no longer important. Attribution? Most of my life I lived and wrote in the world of academia. Who said what was so important that if you "took" someone's words and did not say "These words were NOT written by me" -- you would be thrown out of the establishment. What is an "establishment?" A business or other organization. The world of books and magazines would accept nothing you wrote because you were a thief -- You Plagiarized, you stole... I've gotten to the point where I don't care who said it. I want the words, the thoughts. To be specific, I often copy and paste two lines or ten lines -- and I don't bother to "Attribute." It is a turn of phrase, a few sentences. I want those words to complete my thoughts. For example -- and the proximate cause of this disquisition -- I copied/pasted ten pages worth of words written by Paul Theroux. I forgot that a few of the words were Theroux quoting Philip Larkin. I forgot. I don't care. In fact, I looked back and saw I truncated Larkin's poems to serve my purposes. Who said it? I don't care. Tell me what I need to hear and use the best words you can find. Don't bother to tell me that these three words, these two sentences. Just get on with. "Good writers borrow, Great writers steal." Exactitude? Nope. I take what I need, erase the rest. So, overweight and shifty I turn to face the way That led me to this day. Instead of fields and snowcaps And flowered lanes that twist, The track breaks at my toe-caps And drops away in mist. The view does not exist. Where has it gone, the lifetime? Search me. What’s left is drear. Unchilded and unwifed, I’m Able to view that clear: So final. And so near. BECOMES Overweight and shifty, I turn to face the way That led me to this day. Where has it gone, the lifetime? Search me. What’s left is drear. I’m Able to view that clear So final. And so near.