Thought of the day:
"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with-which, unfortunately, is rarely the case-tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them then men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And-most important-nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."
- Mr. Antolini, The Catcher in the Rye
I just finished this book today. I think I've tried to read it about four times, and each time have only gotten about halfway. It just never held my attention, I guess. I think the problem was that it was such a revolutionary in it's time, that every serious or questioning book after it followed some sort of the same pattern. And I read them in the wrong order. Instead of starting with the original, I read the copy cats, so that by the time I got to the original it didn't seem to be so much anymore. In fact, the only really memorable quote I could pull from it, is the one I wrote above. And to me, that's what makes a book special and unique. When you read a line and it feels like something you should have written, or it was a thought that you are sure you had once. When you can identify so closely with a book that it is like reading your own mind, that is when you know it's worth something. Although, I suppose this would vary with different people , so maybe my theory's not worth so much anymore.
I slept too late today and didn't get enough done. I was supposed to do laundry and go to the grocery store. However, neither of these things happened. I did clean the house, but even that doesn't feel like much.
No one tells you that being a wife is very, very tiring.
It's rainy today and I got to sleep in with my husband holding me and listening to Jack Johnson. It was everything I had always imagined when I thought about what the perfect moment in our married life would be. I'm not sure I've ever been much happier than I was at 10:30 this morning.
I miss writing. I miss thinking that my writing was brilliant and smart and that it had the power to change the world. I feel like it's a dangerous thing to base your future on something so fleeting, like brilliance or creativity. I feel like this ability is something that slips through your fingers, just like sand, and why on earth would I count on it to make my future what I want it to be? I think I am afraid of failing. I've taken the plunge and assumed that I am good enough at it to focus on it all through college and to pursue a field in it when I graduate. But that scares me. What if I'm not? What if I'm making it up and it's all wishful thinking? Sometimes I read things that other people I know have written and I feel like never in my wildest dreams could I measure up to that. I remember writing classes that I took before I came to college and how torn up I got through it all. I remember declaring that I liked writing because it had no rules and you could do whatever you liked and call it perfection.
I am just now figuring out that is not true. There are rules, and they are secrets that everyone knows, but no one will voice.
There are standards that you are held to, and if you do not meet them, you will not make it.
Originality is not really real, it is simply a facade that is held up to conceal the fact that if you do not meet the rules, you do not meet success.
I want to make it.
I want it so badly it hurts. But sometimes I am just too scared to try and so instead of trying to perfect my craft, I just take it for granted that it will always be there and hope that when the time comes, I won't let myself down.
I think that I am trying to learn how to write intelligently now that I am sane and stable.
I have to relearn what to base everything off of. Before, it was my illness. But now I am better, and I need to base things off of the truth and what is real.
Except I don't know how to do that and I'm worried it won't come out very well.
This is so long, and I am sure that no one has read to the end. Except that it doesn't bother me, because I just realized that it was all for myself anyways.
Read more...
Posts
