From the Mind of a Writer, To the Public....

  And by public, I guess I'm mostly referring to the poor souls who are sitting in classes that force them to read different content and analyze the heck out of them.
  Because I (and not for the first time in my life) am currently in one of those courses.
  And I find myself to be in a very interesting situation. Not only am I a mature adult, but I also am an avid writer, and do consider myself to be an author. (For those who don't know, I am big on writing: all throughout this blog, you can read different short stories that I have written, and I am also currently working on completing and publishing my first book!)
  So really, whenever I pick up a work of literature, I wear two hats: a reader who is a part of the audience, and an author, who has pulled a chair up next to the work's author, shared a few beers with, and written the story.
  That's really how I read things.
  Now, technically, I have only been writing and working on improving my art for a little over a decade now. But because I'm a serious writer, there are some things I notice when my classes are analyzing works that kind of make me chuckle a little.

  Now, of course, there are some author's who have works of literature that are extremely dense, with numerous different implications and meanings that are hidden behind each word.
  But rest assure, sometimes, a lot of writing is nowhere near as deep or complicated as people try to make it.

  Some works of literature are obviously deep. One I can think of is 'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin. Her novel makes a lot of vague comparisons, and has an underlying meaning in reference to the relation between women and society during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Another is titled 'Clash of Civilizations Over An Elevator in Piazza Vittorio', which touched on ethnic and racial tensions in Italy. These books not only have deep meanings, but they can be analyzed pretty deeply. My favorite part about the is that they both implicitly touch on big, controversial issues. (Because you know me; I just LOVE controversial issues :D)
  However, even these have a limit to them. Meaning, YES, there is a way to over-analyze things.
  And my justification for saying this isn't because I'm lazy and tired of trying to think of deeper meaning behind things. It's because I am a writer, and I know that when I write, things just...happen. It's not all the time that I put a hidden meaning in the word, or write things in ways to elude to some great big idea. When I write 'She scratched her back vigorously', you shouldn't necessary think 'Oh, she had a deprived childhood where her mother didn't believe that fingernails were sanitary and would always cut them very low, so now as an adult she was lashing out in a defiant way by scratching her back with her now-grown fingernails.' ...sometimes (and USUALLY), it just means that her back itched...a lot.
  One of such works I can think of off the top of my head that this is often done with is Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening'. I mean, yes, he uses different literally devices to create the mood for the poem... But a class shouldn't spend four days analyzing this work. There is no hidden murder plot in the poem. Have you ever just though he wrote it without really attempting to hide things in it...? Because that's what I think...
  Another funny example for me are literary works written by Edgar Allen Poe. Most of his works definitely do have interesting plots that are worth exploring, but I honestly doubt that he intentionally wrote endless loopholes into his works that were meant to stump people for years.
 
  Now, does this mean that I hate analyzing literature? NO! I enjoy analyzing literature, and encourage people to analyze my own works as well.
  I think I mainly just dislike line-by-line analysis. In my opinion, if one is analying your work with this method, either the person doing the analyzing is approaching the work incorrectly, or it is not a well-written piece of work. (There can obviously be an exception for poetry.)
  To me, the more effective way to analyze would be starting with large ideas, then connecting them to the story through examples from the text. It is much less boring, and more likely to invoke good and genuine conversation about what's going on in the text.

  But at the end of the day, my biggest though when sitting in class is this: "Hell, if after I die, people are analysis my works the way we are doing now, I would be pretty damn satisfied."

Thanks for reading.

Response to: BuzzFeed Article title

  I'm really going to keep this one short.
  And DISCLAIMER: I am most probably about to offend a good portion of you all.

  I was just on Facebook, scrolling my life away, when I came across a BuzzFeed article that someone shared. It was titled 'A Third Of Male Students In A New Study Say They'd Rape Women If There Were No Consequences'.
  And, just like many others, when I read that, I was like 'Woah, woah, woah...WHAT?!'
  However, before I even clicked on the link to read the article, I sat there for a moment and thought.
  And I realized: Ohkay. This statement really isn't surprising, and it honestly doesn't prove or disprove anything, in my opinion.
  Let me elaborate a bit.
  We cannot pretend like the only place where humans are morally-flawed lies within sexual assault scenarios. Beyond that, this idea of 'no consequences' could be applied to any situation, and probably would earn similar, if not higher statistics.
  For example: If you could take all of the money from the vault of a bank "if nobody would ever know and there wouldn't be any consequences" (using the words from the study), would you do it?
  Some of you may think, 'Oh, no, never; that's other people's money, and that's wrong'. But, rest assured, some of you are probably like, 'HELL YEAH I WOULD'.
  Here's a more relevant example: If you could buy/sell/ingest marijuana under the same circumstances as above, would you do it?
  In some states, it's the consequences and social stigmas that bar many from engaging in activities with marijuana. But in places like Colorado and Oregon, we can clearly see how the stripping of consequences for recreational use of weed has increased the desire and willingness for residents and visitors alike to light one up without a second thought.

  In a sense, I get what the study was trying to do with that particular statistic: bring awareness to men's disregard for the safety, choice and well-being of women, mainly surrounding sex. However, if you as me, the 'no consequences' scenarios shouldn't be used to single out men as horrible immoral creatures. It's more of a human flaw, because if you give a person the option to do something, and tell them that there would be no consequences for it, many would do it, even if it was morally wrong.

  Let me be clear, though: I didn't read the study. And I don't know about the other aspects of it. Hence, I'm not at the liberty to comment on that. My comments are solely geared towards the particular statistic I talked about, and the way that the particular BuzzFeed article presented it.
(You can read it here.)

Thanks for reading.

How To Be "Smart"

  Being at home has given me the chance to watch television again.
  Which, honestly, I'm not entirely sure if that is a good or bad thing, considering all of the crap that makes it onto national television these days.
  There are A LOT of things that stand out to me (and not in a good way). But here, I'm only going to skim the tip of the iceberg.
  I was watching the Lifetime channel, when a commercial for a new show called 'Child Genius' came on. This particular commercial advertised a child spelling a very long word.
  And maybe you may look at that and think, 'Wow. That kid's so smart. Look at that huge word she spelled!'
  However, it is CRUCIAL that one takes a moment to realize: the spelling of that word isn't a knowledge that she was born with. She had to memorize it.

  So today, I want to talk about the misunderstanding and improper hype that surrounds the word "smart".
  This is a word that I have personally been using less and less in my daily vocabulary. And that is because it is such a subjective, one-sided word. I know too many people who attach the embodiment of this word to grades and SAT scores. I, however, have come to see that there is more to one's intelligence than just numbers on a piece of paper.
  Obviously, I do believe that everyone has a different degree of intelligence. However, if there is one thing that I do NOT think accurately shows this degree, it is the SAT. Too many get caught up in the numbers, and think that only if they score above a 2000 will they be deemed mentally worthy. In my opinion, I don't believe that any standardized test is formatted to test people's intelligence in the way that they think it is. I mean, there are companies out there who profit from teaching students how to take these exams. If they were something that actually tested pure intelligence, there would be no need for such a thing. So essentially, this creates an atmosphere that if you can pay for all of the books and tutoring, you can buy your way to a perfect score. And I think we can all agree that that's not an accurate way to measure intelligence.
  It is also unfortunate that people fail to see how much diversity can exist in intelligence. There are more ways to be "smart" than by just getting all A's (and let's be realistic; now-a-days, getting all A's often times can't be considered a honest representation of a student's intelligence). To me, there are plenty of different ways a person can be intelligent: it can range from academically, by having a talent for mathematics and numbers, to artistically, and having a saavy for music notes or paintbrush strokes.
  We need to stop pushing these one-dimensional definitions of intelligence. Too many kids are deeming themselves "dumb" for arbitrary things, like not scoring a perfect score on a standardized exam, or not making straight As all the time. I know I was once a victim of this myself; I used to always think I was "stupid" if I couldn't make perfect scores all the time. We also need to stop glorifying memorized facts and and manufactured answers; because as cool as it may seem that you can list the names of all 43 individuals who served as presidents in the United States, these practiced answers aren't what help solve worldly issues, or contribute to the improvement of our societies.
  At the end of the day, "smartness" and "intelligence" are mostly subjunctive ideas. Everyone has a different idea of their different degrees. So rather than setting false and unreasonable standards of what it means to be "smart", why don't we instead encourage children to be the best them that they can be, by enhancing their talents and striving to show the best of their personalities?

  Thanks for reading.