{conviction}

Odd as it may sound, I've always been a bit too good at getting my point across.  I like toying with words; figuring out all the nuances of their meaning, taking note of cultural perception, and throwing out expressions with multiple meanings just to see which one people are the most likely to contextually latch onto. An inability to communicate isn't really a failing in our family, and for me in particular, I like my words to be surgical in their precision.
However, at the same time, a lack of linguistic ambiguity can get troublesome at times. When it's easy to be manifestly clear on exactly what you mean, it also means that if you change your mind the transformation is glaring. Technically that shouldn't be a bad thing. After all, the ability to admit when you're wrong is admirable, indicative of "strong moral fiber" and the like. But in the real world, where perception rules as king, things grow trickier.
People don't take kindly to those that change their minds. Take politics, where a track record is easily traceable, there are few things more ridiculed than a politician who has "more waffles than a House of Pancakes." Theoretically the ability to admit you were wrong is admirable, but, as soon as you descend into messy real life people don't like people that change their minds, and they don't trust them.
It's an intriguing issue. Nowadays we like songs that boast "Baby I was born this way" and "I'm never changing who I am." Consistency and conviction are strengths; indecisiveness and flexibility are the traits of snakes and liars. In "Serenity" a priest uses his dying breath to urge the protagonist "I don't care what you believe in, just believe in it."
This bothers me. I don't like people who vacillate, but, at the same time, there are few things that frustrate me more than those who refuse to explore ideas that may contradict what they think. (And when I say "explore ideas" I mean "seriously consider that there may be some truth to them, or at least make an honest effort to understand the thought process behind them." Not "grit your teeth and grouse your way through it.") Personally, I like reading articles that throw a wrench in my convictions, they force me to step back and make sure I really understand what I believe; it's my version of a morning sudoku puzzle.
When the Liberal Education movement was revived in the nineteenth century the ideal was to teach people to think for themselves. Education was no longer merely about teaching people how to read; it was about liberating men from believing something simply because someone "said so" and everybody "thinks so" and to teach them to evaluate what is and isn't true for themselves. When I hear professors talk about a liberal education being meant to give students an opportunity to "explore other subjects that they wouldn't necessarily study on their own" I want to throw a textbook at their heads. Aside from being a rather horrible selling point, it's simply wrong.
Studying the liberal arts is not supposed to be about checking out a bunch of subjects so you can discover that even though you thought you'd be a lawyer you've decided to instead get a degree in Medieval Literature. It's about learning how to learn for the rest of your life by producing a person who is "open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." It is meant to teach you to have convictions because you are convinced, rather than because you are stubborn.

In the end, I think that is the way to strike a proper balance between conviction and persuasion. Quite simply, be conscious of what you believe and why, and take the time to be aware of what arguments exist in opposition. After all, "the one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." You should believe things because you fully understand them, not because you read a rousing article promoting one side of the issue. "The false is forever in the lead in everything.  . .[and when] people marry themselves to the first tale told. . . no room is left for the truth."

In order to be a person of conviction rather than merely an obstinate one, you must have a full understanding of a matter; and if you don't, then you have no business arguing for or against it. The world of misinformation is made of third-hand accounts.
We are quick to take sides and so reluctant to part from them, but "maturity is recognized in the deliberateness with which a person adopts a creed."

Sources: JibJab, Lady Gaga "Born This Way," Imagine Dragons "It's Time," Serenity, "The Meaning of a Liberal Education," The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Proverbs 18:17 ESV, Baltasar Gracian.

Write what you know. Just start. Don't delay yourself with typos, editing, rewriting. Just write. Supposedly good reading is born from hard writing. Writing is meant to hurt. Word after painful word; at times that is the process that creates truly great writing. After all, what is the value if there is no cost?

Write what you know. Simple sounding instructions. But what do I know? And which parts of it matter? Writing to me often feels as though I am laying my mind out for dissection.  The blank page is my operating room; paragraphs are the incisions; the black characters which appear, dripping one by one down my arms and falling from the tips of my fingers onto the page, they are the blood.

Is that too gruesome? Too painful a process? Perhaps it is a bit macabre. Surely not all writing is so painful. Surely there are times when the words simply flow, or perhaps over time, the process grows easier. Not everything has to hurt.

But still, there is something about creativity; it's vulnerable and vulnerability hurts. I always grow cold when I begin to write, as though my skin is stripped raw.  Plato wished to separate the mind from the body, Whitman insisted they were inseparably entwined. There is a visceral nature in some writing that cannot be denied; when a contemplation of emotions seems to actually twist something in your heart, or a reflection of sensations seems to be tangibly traced down your spine. Complicated, human writing that has not been reduced to intellectualism is as physical and emotional as it is mental.

The writers who resonate the most deeply are those who admit that people have minds, bodies, and souls. But such admissions are hard and they are rare; because admitting all three makes us terribly complicated. It is tempting to try to simplify and endeavor to to make sense with only two of them, but in doing so we find ourselves stuck in molds that have left parts sticking out. We were not intended to operate well while in denial of one third of our composition.

To write well, one must accept that there are thoughts and feelings, both emotional and physical, and something elusively complicated that defies disregard called the soul. And all of these things bleed into each other like a Ven diagram. And like the wind, they cannot be caught and pinned down for easy inspection; they must be sensed, reflected upon, and then finally described with far too many words. Words that plumb the depths of our language and sometimes necessitate raiding the others; complicated words that need a Latin dictionary to fully comprehend the nuances of.

So you must press where it hurts. Little value will come from the repeated dusting of the surface, you must go deeper. Delve far into your heart, mind, soul, and note what flinches when you touch it. The word 'exquisite' expresses something that is beautiful and delicate, but the origin of the term comes from the Latin of ex (out) and quaerere (search/seek); implying the notion that much of what makes a thing exquisite is in the journey and labour of finding and obtaining it.

To write something that is more than simply good it is necessary to be brave. Intellectually I can tolerate rejection... but to write something that is exquisite it is necessary for me to reach far deeper. And I am not sure if I am ready to let the world see my heart or my soul.

{sources and references in this post include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Karl Lagerfeld, Jonah Lehrer, Nancy Pearcey, Marilynne Robinson, and Jessica Kerwin Jenkins}

{the flowers of spring}

The first crocuses of spring are beginning to poke their heads inquisitively out. I've never particularly cared for crocuses as flowers, but the sight of them brings back fond memories. One or two of them would always bloom in the garden right in front of our house.

When I was little, my mother would always keep a sharp lookout for them. At the sight of their first blossoms she would drag all of us children outside, point them out, and then have us link arms and skip around our driveway singing Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Flowers of Spring" from "The Mikado."

"The flowers that bloom in the Spring,

Tra la!

Bring promise of merry sunshine!

As we merrily dance and we sing,

Tra la!

We welcome the hope that they bring,

Tra la!

Of a summer of roses and wine,

Of a summer of roses and wine!

And that's what we mean,
When we say that a thing,
Is welcome as flowers that bloom in the Spring,
Tra la la la laha! Tra la la la laha
As welcome as flowers of Spring,
Tra la la la laha! Tra la la la laha!
Tra la la la la la!"

{the o.k. plateau}

Yesterday I was reading an article on mental athletes by the New York Times, it was a fascinating subject and contained so much information that I could probably write a whole series of blogposts about it. However, there was one section in particular that caught my attention and that I wanted to share.

In the "Secrets of a Mind-Gamer" (an article with a somewhat off-putting and tawdry introduction that will only make sense if you read the article in entirety) Joshua Foer explores his journey from journalistic curiosity to competing for the United States Memory Championship. As he related the steps he took, he tells of how he disappointed he was when he seemingly hit the plateau of his memorizing potential quite early on,

{Personal Statements}

I'm writing a personal statement right now and it has me quite peeved and at loss with myself. After years of teasing my father over his inability to narrow his focus onto one particular subject I find myself in similar straits. For while I've managed to narrow my subject matter into a one page statement, I sound like a hedonist who has no concept of anything but instant gratification, and I am having trouble with finding a means by which to clarify that in a concise manner.

{Quotes}

You don't really have to know me all that well to know that I love quotes. Whether they are the classic, brief, and yet keenly insightful observations by men such as Benjamin Franklin. The somewhat trite but still true sayings that everyone knows but nobody remembers to use. The less quote-able but equally insightful and thought provoking points made by professors. Or poetry and song lyrics, whose poignant word pictures cloy at the heart and imagination and resonate with parts of ourselves we hadn't previously been able to put into words.

{Intellectual Honesty}

Politico just recently posted a fascinating article by Michael Kinsley entitled Being Honest Is The Least Of It, addressing the elusive quality of intellectual honesty. A virtue he described as, "being truthful about what’s going on inside your own head."

If you take any time consider the idea it's almost impossible not to realize both the absolute importance as well as its positively shameful neglect in politics as well as in the day to day. Compromise and intellectual dishonestly have become a prevalent facet of every day life; as we reason that our little white lies pay off when you consider our cause for the greater good. But Kinsley counters that by stating,

{vagaries and impersonality}

It's been a long time since I last wrote. I think I've mentioned before that I'm skittish when it comes to blogging. I hate recanting anything I write, and so I chose to simply say nothing. I write posts and essays in my head constantly, but the number of times any of them have actually been posted anywhere or even typed out could be counted on one hand.

But I've started reading a few friends blogs, a few fashion blogs, and a few of those deep and intimidating blogs like Al Mohler's and Justin Taylor's. And I'm inspired once again to try blogging. I've decided to be varied this time, rather than trying to have a blog dedicated to one specific subject and that subject alone, as I tend to hit dead ends rather quickly when I do that.

There may be posts about books, philosophy, pop music, shoes, words I dislike, and how I feel about house plants. There really is no telling where my mind may go.

cold

I'm feeling a touch pensive tonight. Mostly out of tiredness I dare say, and a want for sunlight. It's less than a month into winter and it already feels that the grey clouds have been present for an eternity. I have never had a particularly great affection for rain, I get cold easily and raindrops feel like ice on my skin.

But still, it's one of those weary, sad evenings when you just want to curl up, bury your face in your hands, and lose yourself amid your thoughts.

A bit of silliness really...

I am not entirely certain why I am beginning a blog again, I am quite terrible at it. I must have five of them lying about in various corners of the internet, all quite dusty with neglect. But it seems I don't learn my lessons very well, for I am here again. Starting anew.

I am not very good at composing posts, particularly the first ones. But as they say with writing books, you can't write your fifth book until you've written the previous four. So I cannot jump into having my ideal blog until long after I've written my first post.

I cannot promise that this shall be a very good blog. In fact, I am convinced it shall be a very bad one, probably quite self-centred and utterly dull. But I've got a great deal of life that I'm sorting through, and I thought that perhaps blogging might help me organize it out into something that would seem vaguely logical.

I am not the blogging type or the journaling sort. I tend to express myself through creating things. When I'm happy I bake or cook. If I'm sad or introspective I paint. When I'm lonely I sew. If I'm feeling solitary and introspective I write poetry (very bad poetry that tends to veer from irreverent and nonchalant to rather morose and depressing). And, very occasionally I do something else, although neither I nor anyone else can ever be quite sure what it may be.

Anyway, this is my very inconsequential blog. It shall likely be a disorganized array of quotes, poetry, impertinent opinions, pictures, paintings, and odd musings. Read it at thine own peril.