Life Clichés (2) : Leave no stone unturned !

Le hasard fait bien des choses...

It wasn't again a planned encounter, but summer camps seem to be a good opportunity to be inspired by humans. 

Inspiration hits you in the dullest places, either that dullness is physical or essential (like in essence as opposed to matter).

I would include in my clichés this time a professor and journalist, whose field is quite foreigner to me. On the side of that camp, I was wondering whether Youtube's programs are finally mediating towards a less immigrants hateful world (since one can no longer speak of a society in the internet era).

Anyway, he was well learned in mediatic impact on social issues and matters as a whole, I couldn't have asked a better person at that moment. 

I just put my question simple and plain, but that is not what is far reaching in our conversation. 

As I mentioned before, he was an experienced journalist, and maybe the only common thing we could both relate to is the power of words, me on the shallowest side, mainly writing to myself than to others. Out of curiosity and perhaps out of despair, I asked him about a few tips that could help me sharpen my pencils and shine in my writings. Truly, ce n'était pas sorcier, but as a reminder you could swallow it all and be grateful :

- Be coherent : Don't lose yourself as I did above;

- Simplify the complex : Not the other way round;
- Mention a few personal facts : If by chance, you have any;

- Be yourself : By any mean, I still can't figure out how, if you happen to know, hit me up;

- Use good transitions : And that would be according to my simple experience to mind map your whatever writing format you are willing to ace;

- Make sure you develop all the point you enumerated in the introduction part : Introductions are like checklists ;

- Keep the reader interested : Somehow I think that it is the natural outcome of the previous elements, yet requiring some thoughtful spices and hints,

- Keep the reader thinking : This one is challenging and tricky, emphasising on it might either result in crystallised writing that is so dense and segmented, or hinder that passion or duty of writing.

However, writing for academia might require showcasing the intellectual potential you have within.

I couldn't help but be amazed by my interlocutor's concise answers, and my curiosity didn't kill me as opposed to the cat. He didn't mind answering me when I thoughtlessly asked about his career, how did he get where he was. I wasn't surprised, as expected, here was in front of me a self-made scholar (in contrast with self-made billionaires). Having the guts to take your faith in your hands, could only lead you to where you aimed to. 

I expected an earned scholarship, a grant maybe an international exchange but as I was listening my mind ticked the box of "None of the above". Rather surprisingly, he went straight to that Uni and knocked their door, relearned it all, and even managed to integrate one of the biggest media corporates. Securing that first degree didn't sooth the longed American dream, in a fortnight and in that same manner, he found himself dactylographying a letter asking for a position in the US. A thing he would be granted in a matter of weeks. 

And how is that ? Yes you can be a very determined methodic person, and that takes some experience reaching equilibria. A brain is that super sophisticated think tank, that can give you straight lines to reach what you thrive for, while your heart make these lines blurry and confusing. However, a heart, as a countainer of emotions helps one start afresh, and relieves the tension. As he was alluding to the heart and head's mythical contradictions, he reminded me of Jefferson's popular dialogue between his head and heart in the 18th century, his head incessantly urged his heart to transcend the drama, and that it was a dead end following the compulsivness of his heart...

Correspondingly, Anthony Giddens, referred to the same antagonistic functions, one that is trivial of individual motion, and the latter is tightly related to a rigid social structure. Briefly, there is a "social" structure that is a " temporally extended processes through which social constraints evolve and take hold". And there is an agency or 'action' referring to the continuous flow of conduct, and that would simply be you, poetically that is what you ache for and aspire to. Put otherwise, a strict pattern of interaction, that is continuous in time.

Bluntly, that would be you against the world.

"Follow your heart, use your head and then knock on all the doors", he told me in the end, "there are objections and there will be bigger challenges, and if you take what the media shows you personal you will be getting nowhere, and that is part of moving out from your comfort zone."