By Andrew S.
This past summer I found myself sitting on the porch of my new home, the sun bombarding my face and generating feelings of tranquility, sparking within myself an unfamiliar curiosity, and causing me to contemplate philosophies that once were implausible to me.
I found myself perplexed, for I once thought expression of self was the illustrations I produced while on LSD or the poems I slaved over while I was on some bizarre drug. My drawings were usually of morbid mushroom-filled forests with eyes peering out from behind the fungi coverings, and my writing was usually in the form of morose poetry that cynically questioned and criticized the quality of life as I knew it then as well as projected philosophies that I gravely misconstrued.
That day on the porch, I saw that those forms of expression were synthetic; they did not reveal who I truly was. I rediscovered a form of expression that I had perverted through my intemperate drug use; this form is nontoxic to me as opposed to the previous attempts to demonstrate my inner self; this form of art is writing. I am infatuated by nature, philosophy, and psychology, and expressing these through writing, whether it is in the form of a poem, article, or essay.
There is nothing more appealing and serene than sitting with a pen and paper and pouring out every thought or emotion I have in that moment. Reality seems to slip away and I am propelled into a meditative state, carefully choosing my diction from the endless options that make up the English language.
I find that the most fascinating part is when I look at some of my past writings; it’s like I am reliving a vivid dream. Every emotion, thought, and image is depicted just as beautifully as they were in the moment when they first appeared in my mind. I find the striking part about this is, no matter how many times I’ve read my own writings, I can put them down and come to them at a later date and I will see and feel them again just as powerfully, if not stronger.
It is essential that every day one has the chance to show the person he or she is through some means of expression, whether it is artistically, literarily, through conversation, etc. I hope that after reading this column you, my reader, will be inspired to find the form of expression that suits your personality.
When I say this I am not talking about expressing the artificial personality that most people have developed for themselves in order to adapt to the environment they live in, whether it be the high school atmosphere or the office milieu; I am saying that we should express the inner self that we hide behind cliques, make-up, clothing, etc.
Writing, to me, is the most potent form of expression; however this column is not meant to persuade you to become a writer. My purpose is to convey the importance of expression of self. No one, including yourself, will know who you really are unless you take the initiative to show yourself through your own form of art.
My hope is that when you finish this column, you will be inspired to show the true you, the you that is hidden beneath the image of what is cool or what is in. And how do I do that you may ask? That is up to you and is the beauty of expression of self. There is no one to dictate or determine what it is and how it is you do it because it truly is yourself.
