Momentum

Daily, I experience more fallouts with humans that I once associated myself with. I used to think that there was something wrong with me, that I was the problem in these fallouts and that I deserved no better.

Upon reflection, I no longer see it that way. Upon reflection, I have began to notice that I have evolved so much mentally, that sometimes I cannot recognize myself. Sometimes, I surprise myself in the way that I speak and in the thought processes that I undertake to the extent where I cannot keep up, thus I do not expect anybody else to. I used to substitute my 'big words' for words that are much simpler to comprehend, and I lost essence in conversation. 

And that there is the problem, I think. Most of the time, whenever I share my ideas, people demean them and deem me 'weird' or 'strange'. That is to say, though, I have been fortunate enough to meet people who do not think that they are all that odd, thus my academic flourishing. But outside of the realm of academia, it is a cold and barren place. It is a place that is intellectually scarce, a place where the pedagogical journeyers have no resting place, nor have they a mere welcome mat. 

I remember distinctly a time when I was around eighteen. I had just finished high school, and I had sought a writing course that would suck me in, spin me around and throw me back out. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. I was not prepared to search within my souls for words that would resonate with others, or so I thought. 

To apply, I had to show excerpts of my writing just to show my cognitive calibre. I searched through my laptop and gathered typings that I had created at different points in time, typings that I had never gone ahead with. Among the pile sat my favorite, one that was initiated out of no place at all and that focussed primarily on my study of human behaviour. I did not know that I would need this so much later in life, that the table of contents I had devised for it summarised most of what I would experience. I did not know that the table of contents was not enough. Had I continued to write that book, I think I would have gotten far.

But the truth is that I am passively adding to that book daily. I am finding new things about myself, my psyche, that even Freud would not understand, and things about others. I find that my observations are never over because there are so many different people that I have come to meet, know or know about. There are so many chemicals inside the human that mix together and toggle different things, and I think that as a pre-service teacher, I am fortunate to have come to terms with some of these chemicals. There are people all over the world experiencing the things I am experiencing, and sometimes I need to remind myself that this is so.

But the momentum that my mind is undertaking travels at speeds so rapid that sometimes I do not stop and observe my observations, and that is when I forget about the behaviours I already know, and in that forgetting I forget about the natural reactions that I deal with, and I thus put myself down. But I am slowly gaining control of that momentum, even if most of the people I meet cannot even begin to grasp the concept. I too consider myself outer-worldly, and I am beginning to embrace it.

My momentum is nothing that I should fear, nor is it something others should. I may not come with all of the prerequisites needed to thrive in my generation, but I am prepared when it comes to intellectual straining and I am equipped with tonnes of creative artillery. I will not stand around and wait for allies.  

Maya Angelou

I have always had the misconception that life is infinite, that those alive who I admire who are out of my reach would one day be in my reach, and that there is plenty of time for everything. Yesterday, I was proven wrong. I should have known that there was a particular reason for my solemn evening. 

I saw a trend on Facebook, a little notation on the right side of my web browser that said 'Maya Angelou' - without reading any further, I was content for one that my main source of inspiration was being mentioned, atop all other things in the world, in a place where intellectual muses are usually overlooked. So I briefly revelled in that moment alone. Then, I read on, and I could literally feel my intellectual realm shatter inside me. All that I stood for, education-wise, was shaken with an internal earthquake that bounced off and away from the richter scale.

My one academic muse was dead. She had left the earth. She was gone. That was it, all she had worked for, all she had achieved, all the lives she had touched, it would now mean that it would not matter after the media has used it to their benefits, until an enthusiastic poetry teacher or educator or literary or historical genius dropped her name out of the blue, connecting it to the topic at hand, and her name would penetrate the ears of many and slip away, sticking only with a couple or a few students who will, not for long, focus on her name because they will feel that it will be best to return to the task at hand so as to pass and one day reach near the level of Maya Angelou's impact on the academic world.

Eighty-six years, and in those years she achieved more than what most cannot achieve had they lived thrice that amount. I am bothered. I am saddened. But above all, I am grateful. I never had the chance to meet her. I never had the chance to live up to my fullest potential so as to get some mere form of recognition from her, nor had I ever had the chance to write her a letter, all of which I should have done, and I wish I had done. Time slipped away. And upon looking for an address for contact, I have found these two things, both of which illustrate how quickly a chance can escape:

Sorry, the person you were looking for is no longer available, more like. I am grateful that I lived in a parallel world to her, so that at least I did not have to look in a mere history book to stumble upon her. I hold up high the values her work has nestled in me about my appearance, about my womanhood, about my curves and my femininity and my voice and how I can impact the world too, as a future educator.

I am grateful for Dr. Maya Angelou and her impact on the world and myself. And though I never had or ever will have the chance to show her my gratitude, I will always carry her story with me for future generations and I will always remember her many gifts.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

- Dr. Maya Angelou

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.