(no subject)
I need a vacation....I was doing so well too...but I seriously feel like shit. Not the 'I feel like shit' that you just say to have something to say either. I haven't felt this bad in over a year. I'm just drained...physically and emotionally. It's times like now that I could really use an un-judgmental person. And yes, I do have fantastic people that I can say ANYTHING too, and I thank you for that. But sometimes I wish I had someone to yell at who didn't know anything about me...
I was thinking today when I was in English class. I realized that for all the stress people put on equality, things aren't equal. My professor continues to stress 'peer' editing and criticism, and I realized today as I was listening to the comments that the people around me were making, that they aren't my peers. I'm not trying to be conceited or vain, but my writing isn't at their level. There are maybe 5 people in a class of 20 people (a college class mind you) who are on my level, who I would consider my equals. The rest, to be blunt, don't know what they're talking about. And to hear from these people that I am a bad writer, or that I don't know how to write...it hurts. How can they even begin to judge something that they don't understand? How can anyone judge that?
And it's so easy to say that you won't pay attention to them, or that their opinions don't mean anything, but that fact of the matter is that they do mean something. They mean something simply because you don't want them to. And somewhere in the back of your mind you think that maybe they're right, maybe this doesn't make much sense outside my head...maybe I should change how I write.
But then what do you change it to? Do you change it to be the seemingly pathetic and trite fiction that they all write? Or the conventional style or classic? And how do you do that and still maintain your integrity? How do you change and not loose yourself in the transformation?
And once you start, where do you stop?
I was thinking today when I was in English class. I realized that for all the stress people put on equality, things aren't equal. My professor continues to stress 'peer' editing and criticism, and I realized today as I was listening to the comments that the people around me were making, that they aren't my peers. I'm not trying to be conceited or vain, but my writing isn't at their level. There are maybe 5 people in a class of 20 people (a college class mind you) who are on my level, who I would consider my equals. The rest, to be blunt, don't know what they're talking about. And to hear from these people that I am a bad writer, or that I don't know how to write...it hurts. How can they even begin to judge something that they don't understand? How can anyone judge that?
And it's so easy to say that you won't pay attention to them, or that their opinions don't mean anything, but that fact of the matter is that they do mean something. They mean something simply because you don't want them to. And somewhere in the back of your mind you think that maybe they're right, maybe this doesn't make much sense outside my head...maybe I should change how I write.
But then what do you change it to? Do you change it to be the seemingly pathetic and trite fiction that they all write? Or the conventional style or classic? And how do you do that and still maintain your integrity? How do you change and not loose yourself in the transformation?
And once you start, where do you stop?