'Connecting' Assignment

Hello everyone!

I thought I'd share with you a piece of writing I did today. This was actually uni work - an assignment for CHCH101, the new course offered at Canterbury University which teaches students about service in their community. For our assignment we're allowed to use whatever format we like to convey ideas - I chose prose/poetry this time. The question was...

How can service and learning be connected?

There is a man, old in his mind and frail in his body
Crosses his legs when he sits, and reads
You can find him hidden, corners, dust
In a room full of voices he cannot speak
Few sit next to that man, preferring laughter
Sometimes he’s visible
But sometimes he has never existed
Youth cannot long tolerate age

There is a young man, bones, bones
Thin, long hair unwashed
His person and his soul uncared for
I’ve seen him
Corridors, and once in the café
Then hidden in a room full of enthusiasm
Of arrogance, trivialities, laughter
“Yeah I’m pretty happy, getting an A for Bio”
He is not seen
A moth in the daytime
I wanted to cheer him; encourage him
But how?
He must have pride; I must not show that I pity him

There is a woman
Tiny, dwarfed, deformed
Imprisoned in her wheelchair
Yet her eyes are full of light
She smiles, and others smile with her
Can it be possible that she is happy?

Sometimes we are faced with disasters
This city of cards, knocked over
Our pride, the gladness of our heritage
Only bricks, no structure
A terrible cry, the death of the helpless
But now I think
Through this disaster
We have seen our need
For food and clothes, a dry place – yes
But too long we have not felt
Our ache; we have not seen
The struggle of the invisible
Who have faced the shattering of our city
But whose lives are a long-term disaster
Whose difficulty could be eased
If they were recognised
If they were cared for

Streams of Consciousness

The truth: I don't know what to write. I'm sitting here, curled up on the top bunk of the bed in my room. It's 1:01 in the morning and I know I've killed the deadline by an hour, but I also know it doesn't matter, so long as I can get something typed on here. So my brain's skimming through possible concepts and blog-unworthy ideas: the possibilities of writing about isolation at uni, the way women view themselves externally, the cobwebby mysteries of Bronte, fashion and why women put themselves through it, whether a woman's beauty is a man's perception or an extrinsic reality, the idiocy of abortion, loneliness, and baking.

Beware: Stream-of-consciousness begins..

It's past one of the clock. My brain (so useful during the day) is of little help to me now. I really ought to have dreamed up something to write about during the day.

Why do people write, anyway? Why does it matter whether you or I or anyone else on the blogosphere, or in the rest of the literary world, bothers to type out a few vague ideas, a couple of poorly-strung together sentences? There are millions of blogs. Billions of minds that feel the need to express what they feel. But then, what would happen if millions of people suddenly lost the need to express themselves in writing?

Perhaps it would result in a suffocation of readers, who need stimuli to create mutations of ideas in their own minds. After you have read something, much of what you are left with is ideas and concepts.

We are intrinsically social creatures - made that way. I suppose that most of our lives are spent in a certain isolation, all those thoughts locked inside our brains. Only a few of them ever gain expression and the rest are stored away in some compartment of our minds, waiting to be expressed or meditated on someday.

There is something about writing that clears your mind and organizes it. Unless you are writing in a stream of consciousness, you are forcing your brain to order information and see each idea clearly. It is the same for reading: when reading something well-structured your mind accepts information more speedily. Speaking is similar, however it is not so necessary to be accurate when speaking: other people can fill in gaps for you of information they know already.

If we didn't write we would lose a part of what it is to be human.