These Essays and Other Essays

Since this is my one-hundred and forty-second consecutive daily essay, I think it is safe to say that I have gotten used to writing these dreaded things. I have gotten so used to it that I cannot go a day without writing one. However, this all dissipates when I come across needing to write one for scholarly reasons, for university.

It is then that my mind shuts down. I stare at a blank document, and I fear beginning writing it or even writing it at all. I think this is because I fear the judgement of my teacher. How is it that she requires me to write? Will I leave a silly mistake behind for her to pick up and judge me on? Will I fulfil all that is required of me according to the attached criteria sheet? All of this clouds my mind and I do not end up writing the actual essay until the day before it is due, rather the night before it is due.

Writing other essays, this included, comes almost naturally to me because I have the power to choose my audience, to write whatever it is that I please to write about and to write it at any given length, none of which exceed a thousand words and ramble slightly off topic. Writing particular essays, though, such as the one required of me by this Wednesday, proves an uncertainty, until of course the moment it is due. There has never been an essay that I have not been able to write and you may say that this is slightly hypocritical of me to do such a thing, that is write an essay about the struggles of writing an essay, however the contexts are quite varied in both situations.

Consider this: this essay, right now, is like a wild bird. It is not caged, nor is it rendered by 'owners' or people who have agency over it. Now, consider the essay for university a bird that is domesticated, controlled, a bird whose owner has agency on what it consumes, how long it is left outside of the cage and the lengths it can stray. That is how I feel about these two types of essays. Also, the essays I write on here are predominantly informal, which means that I do not need to bother to look through academic journals, use what I have found in these academic journals and then reference them. In the university essay, though, that is the vital part. The vital part in that case also lies within the links between the academia and my argument.

Like when I draw, I prefer to write in my own time, in a time allocated for myself, in a time that I see fit, and on a subject matter that I decide. I know that it is required of me to produce essays as part of inputting my own voice into the university system, and I know that I am certainly contradicting myself in that I am a pro-essayer and I encourage others to be too and to turn away from their fears of essays, however it is painful to form an opinion that is biased about a book that I did not at any stage tolerate and about the topic of gender which I equally cannot tolerate. It is simply too difficult.

However, I have spent three weeks internally complaining. The university essay is due this Wednesday, which means that I have the rest of today and tomorrow to begin and complete the one-thousand and five hundred worded piece. This is not enough time, so I suppose I will have to end this essay here.