Billy Coffey

storyteller

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I Am Not Charlie

January 12, 2015 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

image courtesy of nydailynews.com

Je suis Charlie.

I’ve seen that over and over these last days, that rallying cry in response to the dozen people killed at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris.

This one feels different somehow, doesn’t it? No shopping mall or landmark or school, but a place even more sinister. This feels like a declaration of war not upon a government or a people, but upon the very foundation of Western civilization. The right to freely express one’s views in whatever manner one wishes is a pillar upon which all freedom is based, a right that transcends the rule of man and approaches the realm of the holy. And so I mourned those deaths even as I cheered the protests that followed, those untold thousands who raised not candles in remembrance of the lost, but pens. Chanting, nearly singing as the call filled the air:

Je suis Charlie. I am Charlie.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing something else these past days. I’ve been pondering what it is I do as well. It seems a silly thing on the face of it, scribbling words onto a page. But if the news has shown us anything of late, it is that art wields a power unequaled by politics and guns. Unequaled, even, by terror.

And that’s exactly what writers are. And cartoonists and actors and poets. Painters and composers and musicians. We are artists. Even me. You’ll likely never catch me saying that again. “I’m an artist” sounds a little too fancy for my tastes, a little too conceited. But it’s true. We create. We explore. We tell the world’s stories.

That is why those dozen people were killed.

I hadn’t heard of Charlie Hebdo until this all happened. In the wake of the violence and death, I wanted to see what sort of art could drive people to murder in the name of their God. I went online and looked at a few of their past covers, knowing all the while that the newspaper was an equal opportunity offender — not just Muslims, but Jews and Christians and politicians as well. I stopped when I found a cover cartoon depicting God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit engaging in anal sex.

I suppose a publication devoted to such things becoming the banner for freedom would touch a wrong chord in some. Soon after Je suis Charlie became popular, another name began being chanted — Je suis Ahmed. As in Ahmed Merabet, the Paris policeman shot in front of the Charlie Hebdo headquarters as the attack began. Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim who sacrificed his life for the right of others to mock what he held most dear.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ahmed, too. About how noble his death was, and how terrible. “We vomit on all these people who suddenly say they are our friends,” said a cartoonist for the paper. I wonder if they would vomit on Ahmed, too.

I don’t know how I feel about any of this. There are times when I sit with pen in hand and shut myself off as the words flow. Not so this time. This time, every stroke and thought has been an agony. Voltaire famously said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” As a writer — as a human being — I have always adopted that philosophy and always will, just as I find inspiration in the words of Charlie Hebdo’s publisher, Stephane Charbonnier, who said before his death, “I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”

But I am not Charlie Hebdo.

If I am indeed an artist, then I am the sort who believes art should not shock, but inspire. It should not tear apart, but bring together. I am the sort who revels in the liberty to speak and write and will fight for that liberty until my dying breath, but I am also the sort who believes with that liberty comes a responsibility to use it wisely and with great love. Yes, I am free. But there lays within that freedom limits that should be imposed not by the rule of man, but the rule of decency. Having the right to do a thing is not the same as being right in doing it.

We live too much by impulse and the desires to entice and confound. We would do better to live more by the heart.

Filed Under: attention, choice, freedom, information, judgement, perspective, Politics, responsibility, social media, standards, technology, writing Tagged With: Je suis Charlie

Why I’m saying goodbye

September 9, 2014 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

Some friends of ours moved last week. Traded one set of blue mountains for a set of rocky ones. It’s something they’ve wanted to do for a while (he has family in Colorado, not twenty miles from their new home, and she grew up in nearby Boulder). Their move had less to do with the economy than a simple desire for a change of scenery. I nodded when they told me that, but I didn’t really understand. Who would want to leave rural Virginia?

I’ve known them for about fifteen years now. They’ve been to my home, I’ve been to theirs. We’ve shared meals and Christmas presents and birthday parties for our children. It’s a sad thing that in a world defined by hustle and bustle and there’s-always-something-going-on, few people slow down enough to make good friends. That’s what I’d call them—good friends.

But they’re gone now, a thousand miles westward. They will find new lives, and I will keep my old one.

Their leaving was a bit anti-climactic. That surprised me. I suppose deep down I knew what I had yet to consider, which was that they’d still be around. There’s the phone, of course. E-mail. Facebook and Twitter. Skype. No matter that two mountain ranges and a great big river separated us, they’d still be no more than a few button pushes away.

That’s when I realized how much the world has shrunk. Never mind that our technology has made it possible to cure disease and peer into the deepest reaches of the universe and know within moments what has happened in a tiny spot across the world. It has done something more profound than all of those things together.

It has lifted from us the heavy weight of ever having to say goodbye.

I’ve read stories of families separated during the Great Depression, of parents and children cleaved apart as some remained behind and others struck out for new territories and better hope. They had to say their goodbyes. Many were never heard from again. Can you imagine?

I remember looking around at my classmates during high school graduation and thinking that I’d never see or hear from most of them again. These were friends, many of whom I’d known since third grade. They’d shared my life, I’d shared theirs. Yet as I sat there I knew all of that was slipping away. I knew that to live was not about being born and dying later, it was to endure many births and suffer many deaths, and sometimes that birth and death happens in the same moment.

I was right. Twenty years later, I’ve not seen many of them. But more than one have friended me on Facebook, and from all over the world.

This should make me feel good, I guess. Aside from death, there are no farewells now. There is always “Talk to you soon” or “Shoot me an email” or “DM me.”

But I don’t feel particularly good. I think we’re missing out on something if we never have to say goodbye anymore. I think it robs us of the necessity of truly understanding the impact some people have on our lives, and the impact we have on the lives of others. To have to say goodbye is to know a part of you is leaving or staying, either scattered through the world or planted where you are.

I say this because just a bit ago, I received an email (plus pictures) from my friends. Things are well with them. They’re settling in and getting used to things. They’re happy. And that’s good.

But rather than casually shooting an email back, I think I’ll sit down and take my time. I think I’ll treat it as a farewell, even though it isn’t. I think I’ll tell them just how much I’ll miss them even though it’ll be as if we’re still just down the road from each other.

I figure somewhere deep down, they’ll need that goodbye. I know I do.

Filed Under: change, distance, friends, social media, technology, writing

What kind of __________ should you be?

May 1, 2014 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

buzzfeed quizThough I am by no means a social media maven, I do check in with Facebook from time to time, mostly to do what I’m sure what everyone else does—poke into other people’s lives.

If you haven’t been around there lately, all everyone seems to be doing is are quizzes. What Superhero Should You Be? What Decade Should You Live In? That sort of thing. Brainless stuff, really. Designed to provide a bit of unproductive escape from the real world. Kind of like Facebook itself.

I ignored them all. If there is anything in this world I don’t have time for, it’s a quiz. Especially a quiz specifically designed to occupy my bored mind in the middle of an afternoon when I should otherwise be getting something done. But then I found myself smack in the middle of today—afternoon, gray, cloudy, rainy, chilly. Everything I needed in order to feel like I really shouldn’t be doing anything at all. You know how it goes.

So I took a quiz.

I did. Couldn’t help myself. And when those two minutes were over I took another one, because I couldn’t help myself then, either.

Ended up wasting the whole afternoon and most of this evening, all told. And I would feel a whole lot worse about it if it weren’t for one simple fact—I learned something.

Those quizzes? There is a value to them, and though you might think I’m kidding, I promise you I’m not.

They might have funny names or ridiculous titles. I think that’s what threw me off at first. And a lot of them aim to give you information you really wouldn’t think you needed. Take them all together, though? Different story.

For instance:

Had I not taken those quizzes, I wouldn’t never known which Game of Thrones house I would belong to. House Stark, if you’re wondering. Or which Big Bang Theory character I’d be, which is Leonard.

I wouldn’t know how stereotypically white I am. (Not White, as it turned out.)

Or how old I actually was. (46.)

I wouldn’t know which TV anti-hero I was like (Rust Cohle) or which X-Files character I most resembled (Fox Mulder), or how long I would survive a zombie apocalypse (six months).

I wouldn’t know how stereotypically American I am. (“You’re as American as a scruffy, blue-jean wearing Bruce Springsteen standing in front of Old Glory You are America, and you’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”)

Okay, I actually could’ve guessed that last one.

But here’s the thing—aside form all the weird questions and dubious titles, I really did learn a few things about myself. I would be a Stark in the fictional land of Westerous, because evidently I structure my life around a deep concept of honor. I’d be Leonard because I’m not so smart that I no longer dream. I’m only slightly older than my birth certificate, which means I’m not the curmudgeonly old man I thought I was. And I would not last long in a world full of zombies, because I evidently would not sufficiently surrender my humanity in order to survive.

And you know what? I count all those things as good.

Filed Under: perspective, quizzes, social media, technology

Internet validation

February 27, 2012 by Billy Coffey 17 Comments

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

I consider it a point of pride to say I’m not a YouTube guy. And though a lot of what I’m trying to do for a living involves a computer and the internet, I’ll be honest and say I’m a fan of neither. Give me a letter rather than an email and a fountain pen instead of a keyboard. I understand letters and fountain pens a lot better.

But folks like me are in the minority these days. I know people who spend hours on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and whatever else is the Internet’s version of the flavor of the week. I’d throw YouTube on that list, too. From what I understand, YouTube’s the place to be.

Especially if you’re a kid.

And just as certain internet sites become fads, certain aspects of those sites become fads as well. From what I understand, the newest and greatest is the “Am I pretty or ugly?” videos posted by adolescent girls. Like this one:

So far about four million people have watched that young lady. Four million. And of those four million, almost a hundred thousand kind souls have saw fit to voice their opinion.

Some offer advice, like this one:

At the moment I would say you are a cute girl with potential. If you want to move toward the more attractive look, then do away with the silly hats and things like that. Dress the part of who you think you want to be. Look up the mathmatical ratio for beauty and have yuor entire body measured. The closer to teh ratio you are the more beautiful you are. Don’t get FAT. eventually men will be attracted to your sexuality. Develope this and you will move from sort of cute to hot.

Others are more kind:

you are not ugly trust me and im only 12 you are not ugly if people say u r ugly that means they are ugly on the inside and out you are a beautiful person and you will be even more

beautiful when you are older if people call u ugly dont be alarmed by that just trust your heart and trut what is is trying to tell you!!!!stand up to them! say you are not ugly and that just walk away thanks… and remember listen to ur heart and trust what you believe ur beautiful 🙂

Many resemble this comment:

yes you are ugly kill yourself

And then of course, being the internet, there are several who go like this:

MY GOD SHES HOT. ID WRECK THAT

I could say a lot about something like this. I could talk about how destructive the internet can be. Or how mean people are. Or how the comment section of a YouTube video is a damning indictment of the American educational system.

But I just want to talk about the girl.

That so much of a young person’s opinion of him or herself is based upon outward appearance is a given. It’s always been that way. And let me tell you, that sort of thing isn’t confined to females alone. Guys look in the mirror, too. And more often than not, what’s shining back at them isn’t what we consider good.

What is amazing to me (amazing and also so, so sad) is that these people are now taking to the internet for validation. It’s Look at me and Pay attention to me and Love me. We live in a Reality TV world, where one’s value and worth is increasingly measured by the number of page views and comments and followers and “friends” we receive.

And for that, I pity that poor girl. I pity us all.

Filed Under: children, self worth, technology

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