On Writing

I realize I've drafted many a post concerning this subject, but that just goes to show it's one of my favourite. ~ The source of inspiration this time was from a day spent concocting, spilling out and sealing off a long letter of reminiscence, celebration and farewell to my dear friend, CZ, who reaches adulthood much the same time as myself. As well, it's yearbook signing season, which naturally prompts one such as myself to reflect on why we have the tradition at all - namely, writing down things at the end of life stages and events. ~ For instance, when I attended Shad Valley (a lovely summer program), we had a monthbook. ~ People keep journals all the time, and our society nowadays has a puzzling need to document every single moment of its mundane life (Facebook statuses and Tweets, anyone?). ~ And naturally, what last day of high school would be complete without groups of students gathered around in circles in various areas of the school, congregating around a pile of books and pens? ~
So. Why do we write? ~ Some answers are obvious and come to mind right away. ~ To remember. That's why we take notes in class, draft grocery lists, and use day planners or Blackberries. ~ We rely less and less on our true memories. After all, the human mind is fallible, isn't it? Why bother when it's so much easier to have it remembered for us? ~
A more sentimental reason, as well. ~ We seek to leave behind a piece of ourselves - an imprint on a person, on society, on the world. ~ We all want to remember, but we also want to be remembered. ~ One thing that drives most of us to do something great with our lives is the fear of dying without having changed our little - or big, for some - corner of the world. ~ I recall a dream - nightmare, really - where I was truly certain I was going to die. The pain didn't scare me. What truly made me break out in sweat and wake up feeling sick was the fact that I realized my life still holds so much potential. ~ So much to do, so much undone as of yet. ~ Writing can help assuage some of that fear. It leaves behind something that's tangible. ~ Really, us humans are creatures of touch and sight, deep down. In a way, writing down our memories, dreams and goals is a way of being productive. There's an end result to our labours - evidence that we had these thoughts, formed them into words, and transformed them into an art form, into a different medium. ~ That's what I'm doing right now, isn't it? ~ It's partly why I blog in general. More to come on that once I finally roll around to updating the "About Me" page. ~
On emotional sentimentality... I've realized that we can write what we'd never say, or wouldn't ever be likely to say. ~ Talking is face-to-face: scary in today's society. But writing: that's different. There's a barrier, ofttimes a welcome one, that separates the giver from the receiver and allows words to come pouring forth that were previously stopped by the dam of self-consciousness. ~
Yet in another sense, writing takes bravery. ~ That precise immortalization we seek also locks our writing in, makes it last as our legacy. ~ That can be scary. ~ Though the written word can be destroyed, that's becoming harder and harder today with today's technology. ~ What we write, then, becomes what we'll be seen as in the future. We put more thought and effort into it than we do to our speech, because it's so easy to scrutinize, especially by the masses. ~
In the end, we are able to convey these last memories and thoughts in writing, despite any such fear, because finality pushes people to extremes. ~ Tying it back to yearbook signing, I'll say that I signed many a page focusing on the better moments, perhaps at the detriment of the full truth. ~ That's where the bravery comes in, I suppose. ~ Writing unembellished, frank words is so difficult when a light dusting of sugarcoating is almost effortless to apply. ~ We've have BS-ing skills pounded into us. ~ Maybe yearbook-signing time should be a chance to peel away the varnish and lay out the wood beneath, rotten as it may be. ~ It's all up to where you take your pen. ~
After this lengthy and somewhat rambling post, let me end off by saying that I've published this only because it's the last day - last hour, really - before I step truly and fully into adulthood, and that as with all good beginning and endings, I feel that familiar urge to write tugging once again at my fingertips. ~ For all the reasons I've mentioned and half dissected above, and to put a closure on affairs, I click the button. ~ Writing it down may not make it true, but seeing it on the screen or on paper is so much more real than when it's just in the mind. ~ Goodbye, childhood and teenage me. It was a good time we spent together. I know you'll be with me in this blog and in all else I've written since I first picked up that crayon to spell out my name. ~


Thanks to MT for the thoughts, comments and inspiration. ~ It's lovely to have such sharp-minded, well-spoken and smiling friends. ~

Why Physics Intimidates Me

A cute little post I found lying around in my saved posts, dating from early February. ~ The post being shown here in its mostly unedited state - just a stream of conscience that flowed from my itching fingertips - I must apologize for the poor quality of writing. ~
Admittedly, my views have changed somewhat after surviving my first-ever semester of "legit" (excuse the slang) physics, though not all too greatly, surprisingly. ~ I admit that the opinions expressed in this post are skewed somewhat by the fact that my previous physics knowledge can be condensed into one week in Science 10 pre-IB and two months in Chemistry 20 IB, under teachers who were most comfortable in the science of chemistry (obviously), yet even after having taken physics under what I consider to be an excellent teacher, for Physics 30, I can readily reassert the fact that physics should still be left to mathematical minds than my own. ~

All of the smartest people - those who are geniuses and are recognized to have off-the-chart IQs - are physicists. ~ Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, even the fictional Dr. Sheldon Cooper. ~ These are men society has long regarded as being the smartest of them all, so to speak. ~ The "best and brightest" of mankind. ~

Physics is also closely interrelated to mathematics - another area that intimidates me. ~ Not the basic 1+1, mind you - no; I'm talking about the abstract, "imaginative" mathematics. ~ Think of what men such as Leonhard Euler, Rene Descartes Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Gottfried Liebnitz have thought up, tested and proven - feats that I hadn't even considered, let alone would have been able to approach. ~ Also, reflect on the fact that many high school and university students have much trouble just learning these concepts - not even deducing or developing then, but merely understanding them. ~ This hints at the magnitude of these men's intelligence, creativity and imaginativeness. ~

This is evidently a biased opinion, but I believe that it takes much less intelligence to write proficiently than to develop algorithms or dream up new theories. ~ That's not saying that anyone can produce brilliant pieces of writing - that would be completely undermining the works of such men as William Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe, to mention just two - but I do believe that writing is a tool in everyone's box of skills that is at least present, if not sharpened. On the contrary, one does not always find the math drill or the physics saw so conveniently handy as the writing screwdriver often is. ~ In fact, these physicists and mathematicians all eventually need to draft and publish papers on their findings, and that implies having at least a solid enough knowledge of the literary arts to be able to clearly communicate their ideas. ~

(Here, I went off and had a discussion with GL, who is a whiz at physics and math, which prompted the little post-blurb found below. ~ Ah, the joys of argumentation and debating.)

Presumption: almost all of the topics worth dealing with have been addressed deeply and extensively by literature already. ~ The millions of books written on practically any and all subjects imaginable provide proof to this claim. ~ Of course, there exists future topics that will spring up depending on evolution of the earth and of the human species. Yet even these can be tied back to aspects that have already been examined. ~ Take the example of environmental concern - a subject that may seem novel to our era. ~ However, First Nations have always sensed a deep connection to nature that to them is inviolable. Does protecting the environment, with its shiny new gloss of modernism applied on, seem so new after all? ~ The point that I'm trying to get at with all of this is that writing can hardly be called novel or original anymore - at least not fully. ~ Yet mathematics and physics still continue to expand and grow into m-theory, dark matter and entropy. All this makes me feel as though literature is much more dusty and old in comparison. ~

And there you have it. Perhaps at a later date I shall write up a new and improved version of this post, or merely continue the self-debate. ~ Just a writer's whim, perhaps? ~

Bonus (or just an amusing factoid, for those who care): My physics teacher wrote up little blurbs on each of us students and showed them to us on the last day of classes. Imagine my amusement when he popped down to me:

Answer: Biology.

Question: What was [Resa's] favourite part of physics class?

Yes, just a little bias.~