Shining Finger

Dear Followers,

The simple truth is that writing is scary. In many ways I have always been categorized as the intellectual because of my highly mathematical mode of thought. There is no doubt, I am an intellectual. While this statement seems narcissistic on face, describing myself as an intellectual serves not to quantify my capability for thought but rather to describe my process of thought.

The use of intellectual in this sense matches very closely matches what Didion does in her own essay of the same topic. My thought process is best described as having a close eye for particularities while not fearing the nature of abstractions. I prefer what cannot be known, what cannot be seen, what cannot be broken down.

The common relationship between the intellectual and the writer is traditionally one of enmity. The modern conception in which writing and mathematics are mutually exclusive leads to falsely constructed stereotypes. One cannot be a well-established writer so long as they have the mental capacity to delve into the meticulous abstractions of math and science.

These stereotypes and categorizations have held back my relationship with writing to one of mere acquaintance. Writing is the other classmate. I know and interact with this classmate everyday yet have no genuine connections with them. I know them by name, I know how well they do in school, I know what they like and dislike, but my knowledge and relationship only extend to the superficial.

These interactions are limited to the sphere of the classroom, the symbol of our educational systems. These interactions are in a way forced upon me by the fact that they are a component of my classroom. In the same way, writing has been forced upon me.

My only exposure to concentrated writing has been through school. Only under the framework of the assignment have I ever accessed real focused writing. My only drive for writing has been the pursuit of a grade. Never have I taken up writing by myself, through my own action, for my own enjoyment. The way that education has constructed writing is why students stray away from writing.

Students are never given the space to analyze and construct writing because they are never given the chance to just write, to write without having a preconceived framework of reference to limit a work. Social networking websites that have become an integral part of our everyday lifestyle are the new forum to express oneself. There are several informal pieces of literature that I will publish on these networks, but none of these pieces expand past the one line “status” or “comment.”

With all this in mind, the only question left to cover is why I write. As long as I find myself within the framework of an educational system with a focus on reducing the complex entity of the student to a single number or letter, I will write for my own educational advancement. This is a fact. That is not to say however that I cannot add in my own style, my exterior motives for writing.

Today in class we discussed essays by Orwell, Didion, and Goldberg concerning the reasons for which they write. Without a doubt, Orwell was the author who most connected with me. Didion may be on the complete other side of the spectrum in terms of writing and we never got to Goldberg.

George Orwell, my pick of the day.

I am not a man of who prides aesthetic beauty and profound emotion. To me, the substance of an essay is above any aesthetic value. This thought is best explained when Orwell says “where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.”

Writing for me is a way to tell people what I am. To put myself into words in a format for other is a reason why I write. In the words of Orwell, writers want “to be talked about, [and] to be remembered after death.” I do not digress from this pattern. Writers are essentially self-centered.

While I share none of Orwell’s indulgence for the nature of words themselves, I can connect with him about the importance of “political” writing. As Orwell describes, “political” is the goal “to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society they should strive after.” If my writing can do anything, I would want my works to help reshape the way people view the world, the ontology of the masses. And so I keep on writing

That’s Sexist,
Noel