When I was in the full throws of my finals week and I couldn't see an end, I sat down and I read my entire thesis aloud.
It not only functioned as an editorial tool: coaxing the clunky words to me so that I could find their ailments by hand once my eyes were no good for it any more. It also served as a last goodbye, an emotional means of finalizing my draft. If it stayed in my thoughts in its unsubstantial existence, it could and would follow in my localized cloud of perambulatory rambling. I could only abandon it, tying its leash to a post at the grocery store and leaving my baby to the mercy of my neighbors, if its body could be collared.
It wowed me as the first thing I've made to reach this state. To be so substantial, not lost in the in-between of a notes app or a hastily drawn up essay for school butchering my thoughts about something I loved. This thesis was the first real, true thing I made, exactly the way I wanted to make it. Somehow I combined the influences and suggestions of everyone close to me and everyone I read, as well as my changed perspective incorporating their thoughts. It managed to hold so much that I felt was essential and relevant, and was not only coherent but felt organized and articulate. As if this feat wasn't impossible enough, with the help of my friends I had managed to summon the will to avoid included scores of more texts and contributions. A forever project, passing the point of "near-completion"? They thought it couldn't be done. And yet.
I looked at Quill and said, "I should record this and make a video essay! It already works so well.”
Already at the peak of indulging my ego: sitting with me, reading my words aloud, he gave verbal assent. It was one of many things that I grew to look back on with a mixture. Not bittersweet, but al-acrid-ty. Think less dark chocolate, more mouthful of sand. Feeling as grounded in your body as bare feet on grass, but your tongue coils with the feeling. This taste may become part of your essence, even if you manage to wash every boulder from your gums.
Or the other way I felt it as a child: In the way that black coffee tastes to an addict, reaffirming an identity but with the aftertaste that makes me question if my actions are sapping the calcium from my bones and teeth. Am I the feeble man?
A toxic relationship, I relapse. I belittle my choice to leave it behind, and the growth I needed to do so. Hearing the statements of my peers, that they find interest in an audio version and would prefer it, I sink back into the piece. I am shocked to find that after only two months my feelings of finality are nowhere to be found. Already, after reading a few more books on the subject and a little time away, I can see how ugly and flawed it is. I now commit to abandoning it without resolution or fanfare. It is released, in audio and text, both with so many small errors that it may drive me mad if I dwell on them any longer. You'll always be the first real heartbreak of my life, and I'll have to live without my rose-tinted glasses now.
When I was in the full throws of my finals week and I couldn't see an end, I sat down and I read my entire thesis aloud.
It not only functioned as an editorial tool: coaxing the clunky words to me so that I could find their ailments by hand once my eyes were no good for it any more. It also served as a last goodbye, an emotional means of finalizing my draft. If it stayed in my thoughts in its unsubstantial existence, it could and would follow in my localized cloud of perambulatory rambling. I could only abandon it, tying its leash to a post at the grocery store and leaving my baby to the mercy of my neighbors, if its body could be collared.
It wowed me as the first thing I've made to reach this state. To be so substantial, not lost in the in-between of a notes app or a hastily drawn up essay for school butchering my thoughts about something I loved. This thesis was the first real, true thing I made, exactly the way I wanted to make it. Somehow I combined the influences and suggestions of everyone close to me and everyone I read, as well as my changed perspective incorporating their thoughts. It managed to hold so much that I felt was essential and relevant, and was not only coherent but felt organized and articulate. As if this feat wasn't impossible enough, with the help of my friends I had managed to summon the will to avoid included scores of more texts and contributions. A forever project, passing the point of "near-completion"? They thought it couldn't be done. And yet.
I looked at Quill and said, "I should record this and make a video essay! It already works so well.”
Already at the peak of indulging my ego: sitting with me, reading my words aloud, he gave verbal assent. It was one of many things that I grew to look back on with a mixture. Not bittersweet, but al-acrid-ty. Think less dark chocolate, more mouthful of sand. Feeling as grounded in your body as bare feet on grass, but your tongue coils with the feeling. This taste may become part of your essence, even if you manage to wash every boulder from your gums.
Or the other way I felt it as a child: In the way that black coffee tastes to an addict, reaffirming an identity but with the aftertaste that makes me question if my actions are sapping the calcium from my bones and teeth. Am I the feeble man?
A toxic relationship, I relapse. I belittle my choice to leave it behind, and the growth I needed to do so. Hearing the statements of my peers, that they find interest in an audio version and would prefer it, I sink back into the piece. I am shocked to find that after only two months my feelings of finality are nowhere to be found. Already, after reading a few more books on the subject and a little time away, I can see how ugly and flawed it is. I now commit to abandoning it without resolution or fanfare. It is released, in audio and text, both with so many small errors that it may drive me mad if I dwell on them any longer. You'll always be the first real heartbreak of my life, and I'll have to live without my rose-tinted glasses now.