When I was in second grade, I had decided that I was going to join the ranks of the creative, imaginative, brooding, and eccentric writers of humankind. This choice, like all choices, came with various repercussions, which have both affected my life in a positive way and affected my life in a dark way. I, however, have come to accept both the good and the bad of being a writer, for it is who I am, and I cannot change that fact. During my grade school years, I had begun to concoct some of the most imaginative and fantastical stories in my head, and I attempted to put them down in writing through the form of the novel. I had plenty of time to work on these novels, for my social, academic, athletic, and extracurricular life had not yet begun; however, once the pace of my life quickened and my list of activities increased, I began to write short stories, for I no longer had time to work on my novels. About a year ago, my free time had once again been cut; therefore, I attempted to write poetry. Since that time, I have written roughly thirty-five poems with topics ranging from God, love, politics, fear, despair, hope, and life.
A few months ago, my sister introduced me to the writer Allen Ginsberg, a beatnik poet and author of “Howl.” I was not familiar with his blunt and raw style of writing, as most of my pieces were quite refined and eloquent. After reading “Howl” and other works by Ginsberg, I wrote a poem that possessed a less refined style than my usual poem. It is a ninety-four line poetic account of a writer who perceives his ideal world in spilled ink. The poem is titled “Defiance,” and it attacks our world’s archetypes in religion, politics, pop culture, the family, society, human thought, and human nature. In the poem, the writer tries to articulate his disdain for our society. He then concludes that to change the world, he must act, but he is not sure how to do so. Finally, the writer speaks of his wanted future, but realizes that it is unattainable until he changes the world.
I am that writer. There is much in the world that makes my stomach turn, eye twitch, spine shiver, and head pound. I, however, haven’t the slightest idea how to fix it. Part of me thinks that I am wasting my energy thinking of such nonsense and should divert my attention to the good and brush the bad under the rug. Part of me thinks I should write about it to make myself feel better and then stop there. Part of me wants to drop everything, go out, and try to change the world with every fiber of my being. However, I am missing a happy medium. In terms of logical fallacies, my mind was giving me false dilemmas. There are other ways for me to get my point out there, which incorporate both writing and action. In addition, I can lead a happy life while trying to fight the evils of the world (and no, I am not trying to be a Bruce Wayne want-a-be).
However, there is a slight roadblock. Many have tried to do this in the past and failed simply because of the colloquialism, “history repeats itself.” Mark Twain once said, “A favorite theory of mine – to wit, that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often.” What makes me different from Thoreau, from Lewis, from Plato, from Frost, from Ginsberg? It is a haunting question indeed. Then one day, a magnificent thought came into my head. In the fantastical stories of my youth, I never made the conclusions the way the reader expected from interpreting the plot; I loved to use the literary device known as a plot twist. My question then became, “If it worked there, why not here?” Indeed, the past is the plot of the future written by the nature of humankind, but why can’t we be the plot twist? Winston Churchill said, “History will be kind to me because I intend to write it," and I too intend to write it! From that day forward, I decided to be the plot twist of history, the resistor of conformity, the anomaly of humankind, the architect of fate – I decided to be the writer.
