It is 8:42 pm of Wednesday night. I have been sitting in front of school libraries’ computer since 2 hours ago. There are less than ten students, I counted, sitting in the library. Probably because this is the beginning of this semester, students do not have a lot of assignments to do. However, I am the exception. I have three writing assignments due on tomorrow and this is my first one. Now there are two options that I can choose:
1. Forget the assignments, drop this course, go back home, and play Xbox.
2. Continue to write and try to finish the assignments.
The first decision came to my mind is option one. So I went to the deleGATE and checked how much I would get refunded. I will get back 60% of the amount I paid if I drop now. I can't pay 40% of tuition for gaining nothing. Without any second thought, I chose to finish the assignments despite the reality that I have to stay up. So why am I writing now? Besides the reason that because this is an assignment, I discovered another reason right at this moment.
Before I opened a new “word” file, I really had no any idea about how and what to write down. Under the force of finishing this post, I opened file and put title down. Then without any plan, I started with telling what time it was and how many students I saw. I kept typing and modifying until I realized that although I do not have clear plan of composing in my mind, every sentence I composed is reminding me about what to write for next sentence. Gradually, I observed that I started to be able to clarify my complicated mind and build up abstract structure. Consequently, through this process, I found out the answer to the question of why I am writing.
I believe the novelist Joan Didion has a similar viewpoint with me on this question. In 1976, Joan Didion wrote a short paper, "Why I write." In this paper, she threw out different kind of questions to which she could not find answers in reality. The way she found out to answer questions was to through writing novels.
Same with Joan Didion, before I started hitting keyboard, I did not know how to answer this question. What I did know was that the question is my destination. What I need to do is to anyhow start writing. Every word that I already write guides me to next word and eventually I reach the destination. Imagine a thirsty person in a desert, this person's goal is to find some water to drink. Given this goal, this person will walk around to seek a path to approach water instead of staying at the same place and keeping asking where is water. Both this thirsty person and Joan Didion do not have answer to their questions, What they have are the way to seek answers.
Along the way while I write this paper, I discovered that writing is a way of resolving problems .
1. Forget the assignments, drop this course, go back home, and play Xbox.
2. Continue to write and try to finish the assignments.
The first decision came to my mind is option one. So I went to the deleGATE and checked how much I would get refunded. I will get back 60% of the amount I paid if I drop now. I can't pay 40% of tuition for gaining nothing. Without any second thought, I chose to finish the assignments despite the reality that I have to stay up. So why am I writing now? Besides the reason that because this is an assignment, I discovered another reason right at this moment.
Before I opened a new “word” file, I really had no any idea about how and what to write down. Under the force of finishing this post, I opened file and put title down. Then without any plan, I started with telling what time it was and how many students I saw. I kept typing and modifying until I realized that although I do not have clear plan of composing in my mind, every sentence I composed is reminding me about what to write for next sentence. Gradually, I observed that I started to be able to clarify my complicated mind and build up abstract structure. Consequently, through this process, I found out the answer to the question of why I am writing.
I believe the novelist Joan Didion has a similar viewpoint with me on this question. In 1976, Joan Didion wrote a short paper, "Why I write." In this paper, she threw out different kind of questions to which she could not find answers in reality. The way she found out to answer questions was to through writing novels.
Same with Joan Didion, before I started hitting keyboard, I did not know how to answer this question. What I did know was that the question is my destination. What I need to do is to anyhow start writing. Every word that I already write guides me to next word and eventually I reach the destination. Imagine a thirsty person in a desert, this person's goal is to find some water to drink. Given this goal, this person will walk around to seek a path to approach water instead of staying at the same place and keeping asking where is water. Both this thirsty person and Joan Didion do not have answer to their questions, What they have are the way to seek answers.
Along the way while I write this paper, I discovered that writing is a way of resolving problems .