General Apache. This story was really interesting to read because it talked about people writing about what they want to write about. I can relate because this is the first year in an English class that I am actually able to pick the topic and write what I want to write about. This piece was a reflective paper that was is written from the teachers point of view who actually reflected back on his students lives in order to write what he wanted. When they were talking more about the Vietnam War I could not really relate to what was going on or how he dealt with it afterwards but in the sense that his perspective on life changed, I can relate to that. We all have many experiences from our past that we are able to reflect to and make a drastic change on how we look at life and other people. Even if going back to those memories are hard we all learn a lesson and feel better after exploring them.
Simplicity. This story to me was very relatable because I think that writing and English is very hard. However, unlike the first one this one did not seem so reflective as the first. It did have a genre being simple writing and clear statements, but nothing that changed someone’s view on something meaningful. But, after reading it I did like it because it showed that sentences are a lot more understandable when the are short and clear. I think this also relates to life in the sense that the more simple you make things, the easier it is to understand. Thoreau is one of my favorite writers and the transcendentalist idea to live simple and off of nature is always something that has interested me. To live without the drama, difficulties, competition, and detailed days would make life so much simpler and easy to find who you are and appreciate the things around you. In regards to this story, I agree that writers will beat them selves up over making everything perfect but in truth all they need to do is make it simple.
You are not the only one in our class to read "Simplicity" and think next of Thoreau. while Zinsser is talking about writing, you find the greater significance yourself. You made the connection from writing to life, and you saw the metaphor of clutter in writing as clutter in life. You knew what that clutter was --drama, difficulty, and particularly interesting, your connection of the clutter of our minds as relevant to our alienation from nature.
ReplyDeleteWe have all this stuff, things designed for our supposed convenience (cellphones, internet, dishwashers, great big cars), but do these things really make our lives more convenient, more comfortable? Or do they stress us out further, and distance us from one another and from nature?