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

George Carlin once said this about entropy and how it relates to our country: “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 more as the second Trump administration rolls through the headlines, but Carlin’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. It all started with his bit on the 10 commandments.

I was fascinated by his specials because they opened up the conversation to things that are so normal, explainable and relatable. He told them in a way I felt that anybody could understand. 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 a term he used to describe his theory on observations, “vu deja.” This is the idea that 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 rants were meticulously planned as a collage of decades of observations. Carlin would walk around with notecards or a tape recorder to capture his ideas. 

He organized these thoughts into piles, connecting ideas until he ended up with an hour long monologue that he would perform and ruthlessly revise until it was ready for a yearly HBO special. In interviews, he described the depth in his observations as he would reread notes at age 60 that were written at age 20.

Carlin'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 loved writing about interesting things, I live by Carlin’s collection process. 

In middle school, I came in as a terrible student. I was disorganized and would forget assignments. It fueled an obsession with writing my tasks and todos so they wouldn't be forgotten. I started with 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 calculator. I always saved my ideas. These were ideas that developed into news stories. 

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 find the 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, not the other way around.

Check out Jammin' in New York. This is the good stuff.