These blog posts were a beneficial tool to help us practice criticism in regard to the materials we read in class. Through this practice I was able to identify some of the things that were holding me back from growth and get to know myself better as a writer, reader, and thinker.
The time period between my first blog post and my second was rather large, and during this absence of blogging I spent time with the readings we looked at in class. As I said in my second blog post, “Reading and forming various interpretations is a way to get you thinkING, and writing does this too. Just by writing this post I was able to start thinking about things that I normally wouldn’t bother to think about.” It’s just as Dr. McCoy said to me in her feedback on my rough draft of my Frenzy essay, “actual thinkING doesn’t really happen until the actual writing.” So, while I was still practicing criticism in this time period between my posts, it was not able to reach its full potential. When interpretations are trapped inside one’s head it’s hard for them to grow into something more meaningful and multifaceted. If you spend time writing about them it presents the opportunity for them to branch out into a myriad of paths to be explored, and the only way to explore them is to keep writing. This is definitely something I’ve been guilty of in the past and still struggle with now—I’ve always been very open to hearing what other people have to say, but it’s hard for me to share my own thoughts. It’s much easier to sit back and listen to others and absorb what others have to say. These blog posts have forced me to get over this seeing as the whole point of them is for us to share our own interpretations and respond to peer’s interpretations. After taking this course in which we spent the majority of it responding to one another through blog posts, I now realize that my previous tendencies to keep my ideas to myself was actually quite selfish. Much of my own interpretations this past semester were inspired by things my peers had said or written, and in keeping my thoughts to myself I was denying my peers the chance for inspiration. I was wrong to think that sharing my interpretations would not benefit anyone—and I believe this mindset was one of the things holding me back from growth, and it explains why there was such a long gap between my first and second post.
My realization that I needed to share my ideas is evident in my third post when I said “share them [interpretations] with others. This transforms the loneliness that occurs when you keep interpretations to yourself and presents the opportunity for interpretations to grow into something greater.” What really made this fact click with me was the group blog post that we did in class. In order to craft this post, we had to work together as a group and culminate our varying interpretations into one single argument. There was no way that we could all individually work on the post in silence, we had to have an ongoing discussion about all of our differing interpretations. My fear of being useless outweighed my hesitance to share my own interpretations, so I freely shared all of my thoughts with my group. It’s not like this was the first time I had ever collaborated with peers, but this was the first time where it felt natural and comfortable. In the past whenever I had to participate in a class it always felt like I was forcing myself to because it was expected of me. But when I worked with my peers to create the group blog post I found myself genuinely wanting to share my own input. This is because when I did share, that “loneliness” that comes with keeping interpretations to yourself vanished. My peers listened to my interpretations, and then built off of them so that they became stronger than I ever could have made them individually.
The group blog post inspired me to post again because I had finally come to terms with the fact that sharing my interpretations had more benefits than not. Upon moving past this hurdle, I found I was able to have fun with my blog posts by connecting it to my interests and past experiences. And beyond enjoyment, I was also able to deepen my own practice of criticism. Since I was now much more comfortable with sharing my interpretations, it made it easier for me to blog. Like I discussed earlier, the strongest interpretations come from writing them out and exploring them, and this is something that I practiced in the remainder of my blog posts. My fourth blog post is centered around a stanza from the poem “Logic” by Percival Everett. Throughout this course, we looked at various works of Everett’s. But before this it had been novels, and now we had transitioned to poetry. Poetry is something that many people are passionate about, whether it’s passionate hate or passionate love. Personally, I’ve always been sort of indifferent to poetry; throughout the years I came across poems that I really enjoyed, but I still never found myself reaching for a book of poetry. But after reading some of Everett’s poems, I have come to realize that this is something I should change. Everett’s poems were unlike any other poems I’d read before, and as I wrote about them in various posts, such as my fifth, I was able to learn new things and deepen my practice of criticism. I have never been opposed to reading materials that are outside of my comfort zone, but it is so easy to stay safely in the bubble of things that I am already familiar with. This class was a welcome reminder that I need to read a greater variety of books so that I can in turn be exposed to a greater variety of ideas.
The realization that I needed to have a more open mind when it comes to what I read also can and should be applied to how we read. In my sixth post I go into detail about how the disciplines should not be so divided. I mention how both sciences and humanities would benefit from working together on a more interdisciplinary level, and I believe this logic can be applied to the way in which we read and practice criticism. To explain, in the post I talked about how Mulder and Scully from the X-Files “are only ever able to find answers if they work together.” When I’m reading, I rely on things I already know to make interpretations about things I am unsure of. I take into consideration not just the things I learned in humanities, but what I learned in other disciplines as well. If I didn’t do this when I was reading, then my interpretations would be made with a sort of tunnel vision, and this prevents them from achieving their full potential. But this practice takes work, something that I discuss in my seventh post. This post was driven by my awe with the “ability for something to seemingly come out of nothing” when it comes to making art or writing books. I debunked this observation later on saying that, “it takes hard work to produce anything; artwork and writing don’t come out of nothing even though it can seem like they do.” Earlier I discussed how others can benefit when I share my interpretations, but throughout this course I think that I have benefitted from my own writing most of all. A lot of my posts, especially my final two, were just me writing to and for myself. For example, in my eighth post I reflect on how I write and identify some of the struggles I encounter while writing. Everyone has different things that they have trouble with when writing; I believe it was very beneficial for me to reflect on what my own struggles are because it is much easier to overcome something when you know exactly what the issue is.
In my final post, I identified the biggest struggle I have with my writing—that I’m too hard on myself. By putting this into writing it becomes more real and impossible to ignore. This is the first step to growth: identifying the thing that’s holding you back. Through these blog posts I was able to identify some of those things and am now on the path to overcoming them. The growth that I have accomplished in this class will ease my journey to grow more in the future.