My take: Carlin's Complex of Cognition and Connective Journalism

George Carlin once said this about our country in the early 2000s, when describing his obsession with entropy and the destruction of the system:

“It’s not just in nature in this country— the whole social structure [is] just beginning to collapse–you watch–[as it is] just beginning now to come apart at the edges in the seams.”

I think of this quote with the recent headlines, but George's observations about the collapse of what he calls “the system” has stuck with me since I started watching his HBO specials in high school. His life and talent have shown me how to capture my ideas and use curiosity, leaving me with quality, original ideas.

The first I saw of George was his bit on the 10 commandments.

I was fascinated by his specials because they explored topics that are so normal, explainable and relatable. He told them in a way I felt anybody could understand.

Enthralled by George, I loved writing explanatory news stories and analyses for my high school paper, and his clarity and transparency were standards I set for my writing.

His timeless novelty is rooted in his philosophy on observing life: “vu deja,” a reverse of French term déjà vu. He interprets life as nothing is a coincidence and everything should be questioned.

As a result of this thinking, George Carlin’s material reigns timeless. In an era of short form, quick news and fast fashion, and in a time where content is AI generated and dopamine formulated, his specials still tend to go viral on social media.

His performative rants were meticulously planned and built on decades of observations. George would walk around with notecards or a tape recorder to capture his ideas. 

It could be on a freeway, in a supermarket or on a stroll that he would stop and capture his observations. He morningly sat at home, watching television to gather material while smoking a joint.

He organized these thoughts into piles, weaving ideas until he harvested an hour monologue that he would perform and ruthlessly revise until it was ready for his yearly HBO special. In interviews with press, he described the depth of his observations (on those notecards) as he would reread notes at age 60 that were written at age 20. This was his material in raw form.

George's love of performance transformed him from a disc jockey into an actor. He wielded the minds of tens of thousands at the helm of his performances, mastering his movements, sounds, pauses, rhythms, etc. He combined acting, observing and comedy.

As someone who has always written on curiosity, I live by George’s observation, collection and harvesting process. 

In middle school, I was a terrible student. I was disorganized and would forget assignments. It fueled an obsession with collecting tasks and todos on a piece of paper so they wouldn't be forgotten. I started in the margins of reading assignments, then scrap paper, then a notebook and finally a list on my phone. I didn’t want to forget anything.

Then, I got involved at my high school paper, The Harriton Banner. I developed a habit of writing my ideas on my phone as soon as I came up with them.

I would walk out of class if I had an idea to write down, and if I couldn’t, I’d write it on the exam I was taking or the desk or a TI-84 graphing calculator. I always saved my ideas. These were ideas that developed into news stories. 

I always jumped on the ideas. I couldn't resist just jumping on them when they appeared.

I left high school with a list of about a hundred stories I never wrote. Were the unwritten stories a waste to write down?

Not at all. I needed to have the attitude of writing down all of my ideas to end up with good ones.

The process of collecting my ideas was naturally developed. I gave myself space from music and social media to walk around the halls during classes. Ideas would flood. Ideas sparked creative obsession. I would get to writing.

Writing is thinking. I write to think, I don't think to write.

The Best of George Carlin.

Above is the the most entertaining performance he ever gave, a culmination of decades of material, ruthlessly refined. He led frontier after frontier throughout his career. This performance is in the history books of comedy