Chuck Palahniuk Interview
A friend of mine interviewed Chuck Palahniuk for the Bay Guardian a while back. He now has a website with more of his writing and pictures. I guess what I take away from the interview is write about what you’re interested in. Use writing as a way to learn about yourself or what moves you.
“Well, football is that, but football is behind glass on a TV, played by people you will never meet. You experience it in a completely detached way. One thing that I’m struck by that we’ve really lost is how the gym in ancient cultures used to be a real seat of learning. You went to the gym to hear philosophers as well as to exercise and exhaust yourself. And to be with people. We didn’t have this separation of school and physical education. We put them together, and a lot of my friends who are teachers talk about kinetic learners kids who will not remember anything unless they are doing something physical while they are taught. And I can’t write standing still. I have to write while doing something, because ideas don’t come when you’re just sitting in a chair.”
“I think we’re in an age starved for genuine experiences, instead of cathartic phony experiences through the media, structured, engineered experiences. And those are the fast food, the masturbation of experience. They don’t really exhaust any aspect of ourselves; they don’t make us any stronger. You’re not any stronger because you watched Titanic. We just don’t have the challenges that it takes to mature and really come into a sense of our own ability, a sense of peace and accomplishment. So we need real challenges; we need real risk and danger to achieve those things. Uh … now I’m sounding like I’m on a soapbox.”
It also made me think about when I’ve been challenged and whether or not I stood up for myself in true fashion. Further, it made me think about David Eggars book A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius. Where he mentions how he needs the rush of something, a demand or kind of emergancy to feel stronger feelings. Something about the feeling of trying to rush to get somewhere on time or return a movie. It’s almost like acting like someone is chasing you. There’s a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and his girlfriend are acting like someone is chasing them and they have to get inside quick. Do we have to do more things that we generally don’t want to do or are a bit afraid to do? Expose ourselves a bit more. Contribute somehow to others what we are good at.
Reading the interview also inspired me to search for some more information about Chuck Palahniuk. I came across some tips of his on writing, read more….