Writing a difficult conversation should have been easy. I
practically spend my whole life pinpointing how difficult and complicated
humans try to make things. For say,
smart phones. “We simplify your life” they say, “You can have the wondrous world-wide-
web at the tip of your fingers” they say. Instead, all they really do is pack all the
stress of your life–both professional and personal– and throw it at the tip of
your fingers. Every minute you get a Facebook
message to respond to or an email notification with a new assignment to do. And
because, you have a smart phone, there is no getting around or distancing
yourself from society. Instead you are on
duty 24/7–Always working.
And then of course there is this assignment. “Don’t worry, don’t feel restricted to
limiting yourself” the teacher says. “Just write something difficult, anything,
dialogues, experiences,, fantasies, whatever you want!”
Uhh great, now I need
to find out what I want. And it is not like I can just google “a difficult conversation”
on a smart phone for some inspiration. So instead I’m faced with the troublesome
issue of planning and organizing something to write. So I went to ask my
brother, what he thought. “Ohh that’s easy he said. You know what’s difficult?
You!” he sniggered. And to that I scrunched
my eyebrows and left. Well he surely was
difficult.
And then I realized a difficult conversation that everyone
faces persistently: The constant battle
of thoughts within your conscience. What to write this essay about, what
choices to make… who to talk to, when to talk, what to say, whether to follow
intuition or judgment, whether what you say makes sense. All these questions, thoughts,
ideas, critiques, judgments, opinions, all flutter through your head and then
just splatter on to the page. Just rambling on and on and on, the mind just
never stops pondering and digressing from one subject to the next– and every
day we are faced with that difficult conversation. Never do we get a chance to
freeze time or to freeze that inner voice in your head that just never stops
talking.
Our mind itself is an intricate topic of its own. There are plenty
of people who can dismantle a phone and examine its functionality– but unfortunately
that solution won’t work on the brain.
Maybe you have the key to explaining why our minds are so
difficult and crammed, because I surely don’t. Maybe my brother was right, the most difficult
conversations are held right within ourselves. (Well I’m sure that’s not what he
meant; he’ll be humored to know that his tease helped nonetheless.) Anyway, so
what do you think? Is your conscience a difficult conversation? Does your mind
agree?
I really liked your approach to this! The organization of ideas was great and I really liked how your voice came through. You really embodied what all of us felt when we heard the assignment. I really like how you took your struggle and decided to use it! One criticism would be that the smart phone connections could have been continued a little more clearly. It was strong at the beginning and faded out and then came back in a sort of strange place. You should really continue to use small details from your life, like your brothers comment, because it really worked. Don't be afraid to add more!
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely a creative way to approach this assignment and I really liked it. The content was very relatable, what with the brother part and social media. I also really liked the 4th paragraph because I had never thought in that way before. I agree with Bethany, the smart phone connections could have been continued because at the end you still mention everything you've said before but the evidence you started with. Something you could do to make it better is bring in a specific experience you had about a difficult decision with yourself because the detail about your brother worked very well.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very creative approach to the assignment. I loved how you chose to write about the internal struggles/conversations in a persons mind rather than the obvious confrontal situations between people. I also liked how you were able to target a broad audience by writing about such a relatable topic. I agree with Bethany and Heather that there should more analysis when you are contrasting smart phones and our brains (paragraph 5) to clarify what you are trying to argue. Also, I think you could strengthen your story by adding some of the conversations you have inside of your mind after you say "All these questions, thoughts, ideas, critiques, judgments, opinions, all flutter through your head and then just splatter on to the page".
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