Archive for October 14th, 2011
My preferred technique to writing essays: Roll over, fake dead?
There are many techniques for getting in the adventure of composing essays. Three methods come to mind:
First method: If you feel that relying on other published articles and essays constitute implicit “plagiarism”, and you hate to emulate others ideas and styles, that you surely must have your own style and perception of life and the universe, and that you must wait until the “dust settle” after a long age and accumulated “unadulterated” personal experiences, and a longer string of regrets of the type “I should have…”, before you start writing “honestly and frankly”, then you shall never write for others to share. Meaning, you shall never publish anything, or anything of value… In that case, I suggest:
First, immediately note down your emotions and your initial reactions.
Second, publish a draft of how you felt and thought. Meaning, noting down is not enough: Others should have the right to extend their feedback, and for you to pay attention and reflect a bit more…
Third, don’t wait for the “dust to settle” on your initial reaction: You will eventually forget your initial reactions along with the emotions. You will never recognize when the “dust has actually settled” to satisfy your ego for “sharing true reflected reactions to emotions…”
The second method for writing essays is to publish a short version of your topic and ask readers for feedback. Most probably, feedback are not forthcoming. Whatever you might receive are tangent to your topic…Yet, you did a first step, an attitude demonstrating that you are serious to re-edit and work on the topic, hopefully soon, before you convince yourself that the topic is not that important in the first place…
The third method got my preference, and I call it “pre-feedback” technique. Don’t wait for feedback: actively search for them around you. Read a lot. Surf the social platforms, pay attention to what you receive in links, participate in conversation…Base your essay on pieces that you have read and affected you “today”. Work your essay around the topic, edit the post that you have read, add your personal experiences, positions that you disagree with, open up additional questions, extend other alternatives and perspectives to analyzing and studying the topic…
There are advantages to the “pre-feedback” method:
One, you have no excuses for “mental block”: Just laziness for connecting and reading. All topics, emotions, feelings, ideas, concepts, experiences are shared. Your job is to select what affects “today” and run with it.
Two, by the by, without immediately realizing it, you are on the path of engagement. You find yourself selecting topics that concern you and you have your niche.
Three, that process of choosing topics that affect you will eventually lead to serious introspection process. Hidden emotions and experiences resurface and you have plenty of opportunity to deal with your demons and share your struggle, life and experiences…
An example of my preferred technique is working on a post that I read on the blog of notesby.me.
The post on notesby.me reads:
“Today, I tried to save this little insect above. In vain. It’s turned on its back. It opens up, but can’t stand back up on its feet.
Every time I try to roll it on its feet, it gets scared and closes itself into a ball. I’ve tried a dozen times.
It’s destined to die a slow and lonely death. And so are you, if you’re trying to make it on your own. Every time you open up to venture into something new, you meet someone willing to help, but… You get scared. You roll back up unto yourself.
For this insect to survive, it has to overcome its fear, and stay open as I roll it up on its feet. Of course it can’t. Its survival mechanism is hard wired. For the insect, either it closes, or it dies.
We know that this is far from the truth, because I’m genuinely trying to help. But it doesn’t matter. The insect believes otherwise. It believes that, if it opens up, it will be killed.
Fortunately for you, if you open up and accept help, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be killed.
If you don’t, I can guarantee that you’ll die a slow and lonely death. Sure it might take a handful of decades, that’s why it’s slow and lonely.
Venture into something new. Stay open-minded despite your fears. Accept the help of others. They might just be trying to turn you back on your feet.
I’m still watching this insect. It’s still trying on it’s own. Without accepting help, it’s as good as dead. Twitter: @williamchoukeir” End of quote
Do you think that “this insect” has sensory capabilities attached to the shell in order to sense and perceive environment and be able to decide whether to close or open up his shell? Keeping the shell closed is a fantastic strategy for predators not of the mankind.
It is not that man will not crush it, which is the least probable of risks: Insects are mostly invisible, unless coming in the direct cone of vision. Mankind prefer mass extinction of insects: spaying heavily, and not necessarily for any specific insects. Massive “collateral damage” strategy principle has been included in the US constitution, as legally advisable and highly preferable to one by one “droning with extreme prejudice”.
This shelled insect might survive better if it open-up more occasionally to sense and take a good look at its environment: Mankind is changing animal natural environments every minute. This shelled insect would be better off scurrying to another more suitable environment that looks and smells more “natural”.
How can mankind acquire confidence that his neighbor really was meaning well in helping, if most mankind actions are not promising to be directed to the survival of its specie?
Adonis Diaries 