February 2024

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A word appreciation to great writers; they are a true gift to this Earth. 

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My favourite medium to absorb information is through podcasts and books. I do not think that all works are to the same calibre. I can tell when something is mediocre or something is genius. I appreciate both fiction and non-fiction. Whether it’s a technical or creative piece, I love it when it mimics poetry and has an aesthetic and rhythmic quality that allows readers to easily visualise the story in their minds. It is so vivid and immersive that you become the main character in the story. The writer, in a way, possesses you, and you are able to see everything from their perspective in first-person. It’s as if you were there.

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Podcasts, speeches, books, essays, articles, songs. They expose you to new ideas. They make you feel something. You find yourself catching your breath, taking a mental note. Something in your brain clicks and it shifts your brain chemistry. They alter how you perceive a situation, so you can live through their example and therefore make better informed decisions. Our mind operates at rapid speed, thought after thought, non-cohesively. Sometimes, we only have a baseline understanding of something and are unable to articulate it in full. Because writers take time to gather data, process it, unwrinkle the blind spots, they can explain things you weren’t able to articulate yourself. Writing helps satisfy my curiosities and provides clarity.  A knot in your brain that is released.

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I started writing seriously again. I used to write essays on the regular. Anything ranging from economics, politics, or travel. I thought about publishing them on a blog but hesitated. My Wordpress coding capabilities were limited, and I was quite self-conscious about others reading my work. Recently I read through my old essays and I’m very glad I hesitated. Poignantly speaking, some of it was cringey – perhaps emotionally charged, slightly sanctimonious or lacked a holistic understanding. I was in my early twenties so all is forgiven. Nonetheless, they are in my google drive and it is still interesting for me to see how much I have evolved. I still want to publish some of my pieces, but it did teach me that anything I write moving forward will be benched for some time before I choose to publish it. I want to minimise the chances of misspeaking and give myself the opportunity to edit something. “Think before you Speak,” is absolutely correct.

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Since I moved to Ottawa, I’ve been following a more casual tempo in terms of my writing. I typically just write in a daily gratitude journal or occasionally I write unfiltered letters to myself if I’m trying to process something or serve as points of reflection. Back in January, I spent 11 weeks consistently writing to compile my experience for my P.Eng and while it was a tedious process, I was reminded about how much I loved to write and am writing new content for my blog. 

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Essay writing serves a different purpose. It allows you to explore a variety of different topics and interests, deep dive, dissect, distil, before finally curating these thoughts into one cohesive fluid piece. Unfortunately, clickbait culture has made attention deficit an epidemic and critical thinking has atrophied. Essay writing is useful to allow you to think about a topic in its full range. There is also something magical about a thought being written and being tangible in this world. Even if nobody ever reads your work, it can be there for you. 

 

Sharing my all-time favourite works. Thank you for changing my brain chemistry.