Your Creativity Should Be All But Dead By Independence Day.
It's not that The American Dream should render one stupid; Hell, blame Canada Day. However, any and all blame is merely for show: you don't WANT to write. You can't remember a time, really, when putting words onto paper made you free. The creativity itself is what makes you want to write. The crazy voices in your head are pointing a gun at you, threatening to leave you alone with your undeserved alienation unless you let them speak. The crazy voices are also in the concrete, but at least the ones in your head are more afraid of you then you are of them. You have the Great American Novel in your head; you type with your illiterate hands. Can the the Great American Novel be written in Braille? Only if the Socialists are helping you, Helen Keller. HELEN KELL-ER... YOU'VE BEEN OUT TOO LONG IN THE MIDNIGHT SEA...
DID YOU KNOW? It's been said that E.B. White hated to write; no wonder with all those rules Strunk gave him, like some old-timey STD.
You listen to the Sound and the Fury, on tape, signifying nothing. It's narrated by the same guy who did On The Road, on your second attempt at discovering America. You don't mind Kerouac; you just wish he stopped reading the National Review while driving.
Your old calculus teacher suggested you read Faulkner. Fortunately, he didn't compare you to Benjy. Last year, you went to another former prof, an English teacher. One of his naïve pupils said you reminded her of a character in "that story we read"... Lenny. Lenny. The mentally challenged giant who kills everything he touches, Lenny. You felt sorry for her, thinking Of Mice and Men was a short story and all.
You can think of dozens of former classmates who were more like Lenny than you'll ever be. And if you're lucky tonight, celebrating America's independence while rocking out to Foreigner, they can touch you, without the pain you once thought they brought every day, hurting anybody.