Last semester in my composition class, we had to write an introduction to ourselves using six "active" verbs. It's hard for me to write while an MLA-format Word document is staring me in the face, so I started free-writing. I have a hard time telling exactly what I think of myself, but I think this sums me up pretty well.
I read to broaden my small horizon, to see a world beyond the reaches of my own through the eyes of another. I write to process my thoughts so I may see what I think. I listen to learn the stories of those who may go unnoticed and unappreciated. I fear the unknown, being dragged from a comfortable situation by progress and change. I love when I can lie in the grass in my backyard and watch the late afternoon sun glisten through the trees above me, to be completely silent and hear nothing but the wind and the still, small voice that gets lost in the shuffle of my daily life.
And when I'm alone in my house at night - when the day is done, the work is finished, and for a few hours my frustrations and questions are put on hold - I turn off the lights, sit in the dark, and fill my ears and mind with the music I make on the piano in front of me. Someone once said, "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Not everybody understands this - to some, music is simply something to fill noiseless space, to distract the mind in between conversations; for others it is the words, the lyrics that determine the meaning of the song.
To me, it is the language only the speechless may speak. The intensity of the low notes, growling anger and agony; the silent suffering, the "single teardrop" in the high register; the excitement of the pitches in between. It is the expression of inner emotion, raw feeling that known words cannot begin to relay.
I read to broaden my small horizon, to see a world beyond the reaches of my own through the eyes of another. I write to process my thoughts so I may see what I think. I listen to learn the stories of those who may go unnoticed and unappreciated. I fear the unknown, being dragged from a comfortable situation by progress and change. I love when I can lie in the grass in my backyard and watch the late afternoon sun glisten through the trees above me, to be completely silent and hear nothing but the wind and the still, small voice that gets lost in the shuffle of my daily life.
And when I'm alone in my house at night - when the day is done, the work is finished, and for a few hours my frustrations and questions are put on hold - I turn off the lights, sit in the dark, and fill my ears and mind with the music I make on the piano in front of me. Someone once said, "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Not everybody understands this - to some, music is simply something to fill noiseless space, to distract the mind in between conversations; for others it is the words, the lyrics that determine the meaning of the song.
To me, it is the language only the speechless may speak. The intensity of the low notes, growling anger and agony; the silent suffering, the "single teardrop" in the high register; the excitement of the pitches in between. It is the expression of inner emotion, raw feeling that known words cannot begin to relay.
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