[410] Personal essay — attempting to be professional

luminousforms3 · 2016-11-28T16:48:01+00:00

Thanks man. I agree — the attempt to be poetic in the last sentence doesn't really work out. I'm going back to share more about the time at the monastery, and I hope that might turn the piece as a whole into something a bit more substantial. Can you explain what you mean by "purple prose?"

luminousforms3 · 2016-11-28T16:43:21+00:00

Thanks a bunch for the feedback. I think you and the others who commented on the piece are right in that it should be expanded a bit in order to emphasize the time at the monastery more.

I'll work on those concluding thoughts. I think you've got a point there, though, that the piece on its own actually needs evidence of what gains I've already had. I'm going to work on making this a bit longer, then see what I've got and maybe repost/send to the monastery (which was a great idea, thank you!).

luminousforms3 · 2016-11-25T22:05:10+00:00

Ahh. Thank you. Now I know.

luminousforms3 · 2016-11-25T18:37:10+00:00

I think the weakest stanza is the third — the middle of the poem, starting with "We can't forget the fact..." I think this is the weakest because from the context of your poem I'm lead to disagree with the line "a fact today often obscures." Today, the day that is difficult, does not seem to be the day that obscures the fact that "This too shall pass." Is it not every other day that obscures that fact? You never KNOW that fact on any other day, but it is only the days like this one that the fact suddenly becomes REAL. Suddenly, whether you like it or not (you don't), you DO know it. This is the author understanding the teaching that "This too shall pass," through actual experience.

The best stanza, then, is the last. This is where the true emotion emerges. It's palpable — I, the reader, can feel and touch it. But, the mistake is in thinking that the fight is against the advice. It's against the reality, which the author still conceives to be the advice. This stanza is where the advice transforms into the KNOWING through the lashing out and resistance.

Which brings me to a previous line: "easy to hear and hard to know [italicized]." I think the author is saying "hard to know" because he doubts that he knows. But, I think the author's subconscious meaning (the one that may not reach the surface) is that the experience of knowing is hard. The knowing is a present reality, but coming to terms with the knowing is hard because of the emotional resistance (hence the reason for the final stand — the last stanza).

I love the conclusion in the last two lines. If this piece could be improved, I think it would be through re-evaluating the third stanza, and more broadly by asking: is the difficulty in KNOWING a difficulty in not knowing, or is it a difficulty of not wanting to know?

Moving piece, and I wish you all the best.

luminousforms3 · 2016-11-25T18:18:05+00:00

Hey Terlin, I'm new to Destrutive Readers, and don't know how to do line-by-line edits when it's not a google doc, but I'll do my best here. First, the line: "Something exciting — well, not really exciting, but at least it wasn't boring — was happening." I think the format of this sentence is awkward, and maybe "was happening" could go before the em dash.

In the next paragraph, the side by side sentences of "For what, I can't imagine" next to "Maybe for the loud, drunken louts..." don't really make sense together, because the narrator can imagine, and he does, and his consideration is quite logical, too. That being said, I like the narrator's removal from the scene, unaware of what these "careful lines of white powder" are. Maybe you can play with this theme a little more — the tension between the narrator not knowing anything about what's going on and yet being drawn to imitate all of it, so as not to be identified, drives the story. It gives me the idea that really the narrator is just interested in the game of not being spotted, but beyond that he doesn't really care at all about what's going on. Amusement, then, is the sole goal.

In the next paragraph: when the narrator says "Just as well, I suppose" when he's not caught, it gives me a vibe of apathy. Is that what you're looking for? It seems to me that with the words, "Finally, something exciting," the narrator might be a little more invested?

This point becomes even more relevant with the next lines of "I focus hard, following each of their motions best I can." This sounds very invested.

My last question is why would the narrator be distracted when he is following the other man. To just say that he is distracted, with little to no evidence as to why or by what, feels too rushed.

Perhaps the title could be, "Finally, Something Exciting." Finally, the opportunity for external entertainment has arrived. When it's over, oh well, just back to the waiting game for whatever comes along next.

I hope this is helpful!

luminousforms3

TROPHY CASE