In pursuit of a personal essay

I am happy with my own lesser thing, because it is mine.

I had an experience recently which conversely shook my confidence and stiffened my spine in regards to my writing ability. I had a friend read an entry on my blog-- an entry that I had been working on here and there for a few months, since I like to use my blog as a place to practice essay writing in hopes to receive some kind of feedback-- of which I was particularly proud. Though aware that it was not without fault, I was annoyed by his short response: "A pretty good entry," said he. "Conversational, but witty."

Clearly this irked me, not only because of his condescending tone, but also for his uneducated idea that this blog-- this essay of mine-- should be anything but conversation, to say nothing of being witty. I tried to put his criticism aside in favor of remaining appropriately proud of my little personal essay, but it has got me wondering about the validity of being proud of something that is my own doing. I took a look at it again and wondered if I love it because it's mine, or because it's good and well-written and worth the time to read it, since--

There is a joy in discovery quite apart from the quality of the thing discovered.

I determined that it could certainly improve with continued revision (but then, a writer can always find ways to revise, and knowing this, can he ever be fully satisfied?) but that it wasn't a bad little piece in its own right. The greatest writers throughout history had to begin small and eventually rose to greatness. Why shouldn't this blog serve the same purpose? Why should this essay, conversational but witty as it may be (that infuriating but!), be any indication that I might not be as Great as they someday?

It has been somewhat comforting to study "Forgotten Essayists," who confirm the great talent of more common folk who have not achieved the status of Montaigne, Bacon, or Lamb. These famous writers are certainly among the Greats but--

There is something cloying about the continual contemplation of unquestioned greatness, especially if the experience has to be shared with the crowd.

There is something kind of intimidating and almost off-putting in the pursuit of achieving smiilar goals as Dr. Johnson; Elizabeth Woodbridge Morris is far more approachable, and I defy anyone to accuse A.A. Milne to be anything less than conversational. The Forgottens, or at least the less-widely studied, are easier to identify with, easier to try to emulate. Of course,

If we spend all oru time on the second-best we shall lose something out of our intellectual and aesthetic equipment--

but since a personal essay should remain precisely so, it is with these humble friends I'll keep company. They are not so "forgotten" anyway. Our small class has pulled out their work to study and critique, so I believe they have achieve some kind of greatness after all. Compared to Stevenson, Barbellion might err more on the side of "conversational but witty," but what is wrong with that?

At this point, I've decided to aim for conversational and witty, using my personal blog to post my personal little ditties in the hope that I might continue to improve and beomce Great someday. Who knwos-- maybe in a hundred years, a dozen undergraduates will debate the value and "essayness" of my essays. My hope is they'll have more to call those exercices than anything as uncritical as conversational or witty.




Morris, Elisabeth Woodbridge. "The cult of the second-best." 1917. Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 8 October 2009. 12 October 2008.