“What is I?” 2012 edition.

Writing Goals:In this piece of reflective writing, I hope to transfer my thoughts on the definition of I from my mind to a tangible medium. I know that doing so won’t serve as a catalyst for epiphany, but having a concrete representation of my thoughts on the slippery concept of I will be beneficial for future review. Since I plan to come back to this at a later date, I am my own audience.

When I first typed my response to this question nearly five years ago, I wasn’t any closer to answering it than I am today. The only thing that I can say for sure is that I am different now than I was then. Does this mean that my philosophical I has changed, or is it fundamentally still the same concept, just covered in a different wrapping? I really wish that my initial entry still existed so I could answer these questions. I guess I will just have to re-imagine my I and return to it once I’ve forgotten about it.

That being said, I believe that every person has their own I, and that it is always changing. Consider, for example, that everyone is presented with stone and mortar then instructed to build a tower. All people begin with the exact same materials, but their final products will be vastly different. Furthermore, over time, their towers may suffer from erosion by the weapons of weather, or they may be fortified through reparation projects.

The constant flux of change occurs so slowly, however, that we are not aware that it is even taking place. One day, we just look at ourselves and are either pleased by what we see or realize that a change needs to be made. It is during these periods that we are most aware of I. Unfortunately, I’m too busy to inspect the state of my I tower. I guess it’s still inhabitable though, so renovations will have to wait until it starts collapsing. I just hope by then, it won’t be too late.

Analysis of goal completion: That went pretty well, actually. At the onset, I didn’t have any plans for where my thoughts would go. I just began typing with the hope that I would puncture the vein of introspection and send raw thought oozing out all over the page.  I guess now I just have to play the waiting game and come back to this in 2016.

A Word of Warning

Scratch that.

A Word of Welcome.

Wait, scratch that too.

Let’s just not use a title. Titles tend to restrict things. When a title is read, expectations are established and limits are imposed. In this class, that is the last thing that you would want. Marlen gives you the freedom to write and develop your voice, and that is one of the best gifts an English instructor can give. There are no more 5-paragraph essays. No boring, by-the-book writing conventions. Just you, a blank page, and endless possibilities.

My favorite part of this class was how open-ended all of the assignments were. If I felt like writing some poems, I could tap into my inner Ginsberg and string out lines of poetry. If I wanted to abandon traditional, English class writing, it wasn’t out of the question to write an infomercial script or make a brochure.

Experimenting with different writing formats in this class really helped me to evolve into the writer I am today and has given me the tools needed to continue evolving into the writer that I will one day become. If you take this class seriously, not only will you receive a passing grade, but you will also discover how great of a writer you actually are.

If you need to reach me, my email address is yffq@iup.edu and my Skype account name is this-is-keith.

I will be happy to help you come up with ideas for writing. Also, I am always willing to offer up some writer’s mortar so we can take your writer’s block and build something worthwhile.

I’m looking forward to helping any way that I can this semester.

Good luck, and don’t procrastinate.

Also, I’m sorry about how incomplete my blog is. I did the work; trust me. It just disappeared somehow.