The essay as genre

Although this reading was hard to follow at times, it brought to light a lot of interesting points when it comes to observing the self through writing, and how necessary it is to earn the friendship of the reader in order to give your writing some validity and cohesiveness. One of the more enlightening points for me was the idea of an essay making, "a claim to truth, but not permanent truth." I interpret this as a way of how we might see life in the present vs. how we have seen it in the past, therefor never permanent, or better phrased, "an isolated self confronting a world of which nothing is known for certain." 

This also brings me back to The Writing Life Now is What I've Lived For, and the line, "Trying to understand why my life has had so many beginnings. Trying to identify which of my past selves still confound me." In writing i feel that i relate to these ideas most, because you can't successfully try and relate without a sense of knowledge and experience, or as Montaigne states, "I speak as one who questions, and does not know. . . I do not teach, i relate." I feel that this is something important to keep in mind. Even though a person may have not experienced an alcoholic parent, or the loss of a loved one, the emotions one may have felt connect us. The way these feelings are conveyed on paper and to the reader are universal. We are all interconnected in someway by these feelings, even though the events shape us differently. We can offer personal experience through these events and yet relate on a certain level of consciousness, or as it is stated in this piece, "Every man carries in himself the complete pattern of human nature." These are the threads i continued to run into, or more or less relate to, while reading this essay, among others. Many things about writing a personal essay contradict themselves, yet when looked at closer, makes sense in an odd way (ie: writing with disinterested curiosity). 

The idea that the "heart" of the essay comprises of: "recognition, figuration, where the self finds a pattern in the world and the world finds a pattern in the self" (p.22) is intriguing because in class, we had talked about how everybody has a "theme" that they often return to. How we view our self in the world and what the world returns to us is kind of profound, especially when you relate it to not only writing in a successful way, but your life. Through awareness, these concepts bring the life to your work. These ideas that are being brought to my attention might have otherwise gone unnoticed, and i am thankful that writing has delivered me this.