Control: Tired of Greatness

I, Dalton Lewis, am tired of my favorite shows and novels. I am tired of the Arrowverse from the CW. I know that the shows are some of my favorite shows. Oliver Queen is a brooding behemoth, wrecking villains and saving lives and impressing me with his strength of character. Supergirl and Superman are iconic heroes who fight to save the planet, most recently from racists who are aligned with Lex Luthor and the snaky Ben Lockwood. I should love those shows. I do love those shows. I am also sick of them.

I don’t know why or when that happened. I tried to watch Arrow today, at my dad’s television in the living room. It didn’t work — I didn’t understand or like what I was watching. They tried to turn the show into a documentary series and showed interviews with the characters. I liked the idea but not the execution. I tried to give it a chance but got antsy. Meanwhile my schizophrenia went out of control and told me that I was going to be framed and replaced by a fake. I knew it wasn’t real but yelled that I was innocent all over my mind anyway. I stopped watching in annoyance.

I switched to another favorite show, The Resident. I watched the show show people getting infected with flu-like viruses and felt disgusted and angry at the show. I got sick of the characters being corrupt and failing. I got sick of the characters not being likable at all or people I would want to know in my life. I bored of the obvious romantic triangle being created. I don’t know why — good, quality writers are writing quality stories. I am just sick of it.

I don’t know why, but Criminal Minds, my current favorite show, was on today and I didn’t pay any attention to it. I don’t understand. It’s my favorite show. I don’t know what to say. I just care so much about the show but think nothing of it any longer. I don’t care any more. I know that I am being a brat.

Why do we have such high standards when watching or reading something? I don’t know anything about being a popular or successful writer, but I do know something about trying to write a series of novels. It can be devastating when people criticize my writing works. I hate the living hell out of failing to write something wonderful. I feel like people don’t care about my writing or care about me when I write my ass off to create amazing and real worlds and people don’t respond or get it.

What should I do? I know that I should write more and more and try to get smarter and better at writing. I know that I should try to reflect what is wrong with life and show a world that is real and raw and troubled. I just think that showing a real world isn’t enough when readers don’t care or give people a chance any more. A lot of good writers might be ignored because readers don’t have the patience for good stories. I know that I want to work hard at creating a fantasy realm and don’t know if people will give me a chance to create a world and lore and characters and situations. I don’t know if people will go all in and learn about my world. I hope that they can.

I don’t know what else to say about writing except that I don’t give a chance to many people who write like crazy and try their best to create real, entertaining stories. I am also not given a fair chance to create a world and have people give it a chance. I need to create lore — create a fully realized world — and then people might pay attention to those stories.

Criminal Minds is brilliant when it shows disturbed people we can sympathize with killing innocent people in interesting ways and for disturbing and interesting reasons. I really like the way a character can be reasoned with and told that he or she is being given help and believe it only to be immediately arrested. I think the show is solid.

Arrow is a great show that I can’t give a chance to today. It shows a city in which the rich and powerful are corrupt and broken and don’t give a chance to the poor people — even causing an earthquake in the area with all the poor people. The rich people are stopped by another rich person — Oliver Queen. He presents as a brooding male hero, trying to save lives and hating the horrible things that have befallen him. I enjoy the show and will give it another chance some other time.

The Resident is great. It shows a flawed and broken medical system in which people try to fight really hard to save lives only to watch everything fall apart with corruption and failure. I like the broken nature of the show and the way someone can die and people can scream for hours, trying to figure out who to blame. I like the way some people can succeed and others can fail. I like the way the good guys don’t always win. That feels genuine.

I think, overall, that brilliant shows can piss us off sometimes. We can’t always like the best shows out there. We sometimes like the shows in the middle, the good shows that try to entertain and move us instead of just selling out to create high art. I want to give another chance to these shows tomorrow and see what happens.

Thanks, and take care, friends.