Some Thoughts on the Essay

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself
at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will
express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image
fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two
more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is
avoidably ugly?

---George Orwell

I chuckled as I read meditation on writing because it succinctly described my own thought process as a writer, beyond the personal essay I wrote for class last week. While my convictions are clear and senses sharp, I am frequently burdened by the realization that words are nothing more than the best available option to communicate our thoughts. George Carlin summed it up best when he said:

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I uh, I think is important. I love..as I say, they're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. Words are all we have really.

We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. You know, [humming]. And, then we assign a word to a thought, [clicks tongue]. And we're stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words.

I had this experience when writing a short story/memoir about a trivia game my family plays every Thanksgiving. Playing the game for years, each one different and better than the last, and I need to rely on mere words to explain my emotions? It feels inadequate, and inevitably so.

Next, I wonder about the "image or idiom" of the finished work. I'm a self-conscious guy, and from the comment I leave on a Facebook page to which Ralph Lauren polo shirt I'll wear with what shorts, I always devote proper thought. Writing, though, is particularly important to me, as it has become not only a professional choice but a lifestyle.

Even with a Facebook comment, then, I want to be eloquent, I want to be witty, I want to say something of value that goes beyond "LOL!" This commitment to wit, or, some would say, superciliousness (and the very use of that word is yet another example of this complicated tendency), had landed me in some intellectual war zones with former peers of mine, but I have neither the time nor platform to address those memories at this time. Beyond external conflict, though, this devotion creates considerable internal conflict as well. I constantly question the effect of the piece and whether it can be communicated in a more concise manner. Can wit and bluntness go together? There is no truer dread than that of insignificance, and writing has the unfortunate tendency of welcoming such barracks with open, golden sunned arms.