Twaddle?

In scamming around for something to write about today I picked a page at random from Creating a Charmed Life.

48. Choose actual over virtual reality

At first I thought this was telling me to stop writing blog entries and actually go and have a discussion with someone. But that wasn't it. Whew!!! Or at least it wasn't the whole 'it'. Moran discusses choosing books that are "in touch with vital thoughts and events" rather than "boring, poorly written books" and other forms of "twaddle". On one hand, I must agree with Moran. I don't watch TV and rarely go to 'popular' movies. I don't follow the lives of movie stars or celebrities. But I worry that too much 'snobbery' is not a good thing. I don't think having ones nose stuck securely in the upper atmosphere guarantees happiness or even encourages it. Some of the most unhappy people I know are like that. I think there are (at least) two reasons for me to avoid snob excess. One is that I really enjoy some low brow stuff. There are times when the only thing I want to read is a Star Trek novel. It is comfort food for my brain. The characters are all my friends and I know nothing too difficult to bear will take place. My life would be poorer without Star Trek in it. It is a way to connect with others and to connect with my younger self. Still I don't want to read Star Trek novels every day.

The second reason for remaining 'grounded in mediocrity' at least part of the time is that deep down I know that is where I belong. I find it hard to justify being so particular and reading only 'good' books, listening to only 'good' music etc when my writing skills, my musical talent, my artistic leanings are mediocre at best. What would that make me? A person who would only join a club that wouldn't take me as its member. And at this point my heart swells for all the mediocre people trying their best to write, to paint, to sing, to compose music. We should ignore them? We should insult them? We should ban them from creating something too twaddle-infested? Sounds like the same kind of snobbery that suggests people of lower intellect should be 'discouraged' from reproducing. So my criteria of REAL is if the person creating it put his/her heart into it and showed a tender part of themselves to the world. How can I reject that? How would rejecting that make me a better or happier person?