Blog #7:

The line that sticks with me even now: "Happeningness is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may happen and be truer than the truth." All our lives we are taught to tell the truth, find the truth, know our true selves, but what if none of it suffices? There is no definite truth to anything because reality is not one dimensional and is not meant to generalize.
War is grotesque- this is a given, but O’Brien touches on a fascinating idea when he says it can also be beautiful and we are never more alive than when we are nearly dead. When the war is over-when the lines are redrawn, the bodies are counted, the land left to heal itself- we may also ask what is the point? The reason and the outcome almost seem superfluous to the experience. What matters is what the survivors are left with: grief, bewilderment, helplessness, profound understanding of what is important. Each soldier has a different story to tell, not truth or lies, but the imprint war has left on them. It only matters that each one who proffers his memory is heard. The greatest decency we can have is to listen, which not many do or can. No judgment, no questions, no doubts or accusations, only the opportunity for the words to be spoken and the experience to live again morphing when necessary.
O’Brien believes truth is a tenuous concept. What is true one minute can be realized to be imagination or hallucination the next minute. More importantly, truth should not be sought after as a means of justification/clarification, but recognized as an inherent part of every human utterance. Sometimes we cannot not even identify our own truth so who are we to look for someone else’s? So what is true about O’Brien’s story? Maybe everything, maybe nothing; the message is understood.

Blog #6: Some Thoughts About My Personal Essay

Getting the ball rolling is always so hard for me when I’m writing. I know what I definitely don’t want my essay to sound like, but that’s only half the battle.
Montaigne’s style is definitely out- that flamboyant language and references to philosophers is neither appropriate for most contemporary writing nor does it appeal to me. On the other hand, I don’t want my writing to be so succinct and straightforward that it’s boring to my audience. Orwell’s piece was enjoyable, but the form was a little to smooth and predictable for me; an unconventional, quirky form is always more interesting. I do like the idea of accumulation and also find it practical to write in “blocks” because it is easier to reflect on what is written if there is space/time between each portion.
I also really love Jamaica Kincaid’s style in Biography of a Dress. While some people thought it was redundant and uneventful, I found it to be rich in culture and personal history. It was fascinating how Kincaid could recall one detail that would cause her to go off on a tangent about something else (which is how I associate things in my life) yet all the while everything circled back to that photo and the little yellow dress. One seemingly frivolous object has traces of hundreds of individual emotions and experiences. No event in our life is a solitary or static experience- it informs and affects everything else we do and say as humans. I would love to convey this idea in my essay.
I’m thinking of writing about the birth of my sister Colleen, and how she completely changed the dynamics of our family (probably saving it), but this will involve a lot of background story and personal exploration. Honestly, this will probably turn into an introspective therapy session, but even if everyone hates my story it’s something I have to write down for myself.