There's no greater gift to me than a revelatory insight about something that I get when I'm writing. But my joys are often cut short when I turn to share my discovery with others, only to be met with backs turned. Upon inspection, I see they are crowded around the other great conveyor of meaning: the narrative.  I look and watch the narratives unfold as they do and appreciate them to the same extent, but there is always an itch at my back, a whisper in my ear that calls me to a lost form: the analytical essay. It is something that they teach in schools as purely an exercise for someone else's goals. We are taught to hate it. But I, as my favorite discovery, have learned to love it. 

I am probably the slowest reader in the world, so I have learned to learn through writing instead, and through exploring my own ideas and thoughts. But again and again, whenever I catch something, nobody is ever there to see it. They only see one way to enjoy the meaning in the world, but I see two. I know they would appreciate the other way if they could see some great instances of people traveling through it. Oftentimes, conversation is like an analytical essay, with each person exploring each other's thoughts as well as their own. We love conversation and we would all love essays too, if we could learn to express ourselves in essays in the same way we express ourselves through conversation. We tend to use our observations about the world simply to pass the time, not to build something unique, which is the great and true potential of our observations. 

One great reason that stop people from writing essays is patience. If we don't have patience to firstly find what interests us, we won't arrive at something that will inspire us to think new, original thoughts. Then, we must have patience in between ideas, when examining our work and trying to find a lead to another idea. This can sometimes take a while, and if it takes too long, then one should stop and move on to other ideas that they can write about. 

I have found an art to express myself in where most people see a system to follow for someone else's purpose. I write this in a community that thrives, but for a community that is nearly non-existent. My hope is to inspire people to become both writers and readers of analytical essays, and to break our misconception of essays as simply a tool that we must use for work. Hopefully, one day the crowd will turn their heads and gain sight to a whole other, lively world.

No one is valueless. People of every kind offer the most valuable thing there is to offer to each other: a different perspective. We appreciate the value of everyone's ideas in conversation. But why, if everyone enjoys talking to each other, does not everyone write? If everyone has valuable ideas, why don't they share them more? Schools have hindered the sharing of our ideas by forcing us to write under these imprisoning objectives that leave us little freedom. Our ideas are compared to other people's and we find that we can't work on the same level as others. But this isn't true at all. We don't bloom well in a shell that doesn't fit us. The biggest misconception about essays is that you have to worry about the answer to the prompt more than anything. But no, it is the prompt itself that we must worry about. Finding the right objective is the objective. It is these objectives that will lead to the hidden gems within us, letting us find a way to our most valuable ideas. It's just a matter of discovery and exploration.

I got into an argument with my brother one time about how it's so important to write down your ideas. We eventually came to an agreement that there is a point at which it is bad to write down ideas. This is when every idea that pops into your head is written down. This is not what I mean. Not every object seen in an exploration has value. We must be patient and find the ideas that mean the most. 

Everyone is a writer in spirit, a philosopher at heart. It is one of our greatest obligations to society to explore our own ideas. Whenever I suggest to someone that they should write at least a little, they treat the idea like it's only something they can flirt with but nothing that they could ever do to accomplish anything. It may take a while to find what you are truly interested in, but it's worth it. Once you find your passion in writing, you will be making connections left and right, and you will be able to see the world in a new light, through the hidden gems within us.

People treat their ideas like they can only be used for amusement, something to pass the time, but they have a much greater potential. Essay writing is different from conversation in that you build through writing, you create a series of pieces that lead to bigger and better ideas. I find I have been repeating myself a lot less now that I have been writing essays. This is because I build off of old ideas to create new ones, rather than just passing around my old ideas in new forms. Conversation is like having plants in a pot. You can show off your ideas, but they won't grow past a certain point. Writing is like having a garden with no borders. Show people around as much as you want, with a great multitude of things to see, and best of all there's no limit to how much your plants can grow.

It may take a lot of mining to get to our hidden gems. But when we get to them, we can use them as a lens to see the world in a richer tone. Without finding these hidden gems that lay so deep within us, we are often stuck seeing the world through other people's lenses. We may depend upon someone else's labor rather than taking the time to do our own. But trust me: their hidden gems are worth very little when employed by you, but your own are priceless.

Finding these ideas is a task you will learn to love. It becomes a sort of hunt, with every idea that you pounce at giving you all that it can, without it ever running dry. Essays may seem like a chore. The traditional essays in school may seem like evidence of such. But you were merely chasing squirrels back then. Now you can move on to the lion of lions, the idea of ideas, the hidden gems within us.

The machine dangles its products in front of us. We follow these products in awe only to be led through the machine. As we change, turning into what we think is a better us, we simply become another copy of someone else. We don't get the products of the machine, we become the products of the machine. When we don't know what to do we turn to the machine. We pick the fruit along our way, only to realize that it is overripe. It is enough to keep us going, but not enough to satisfy. We have not made our mark, the mark has been made upon us. Our footprints are not left upon the earth, as we wear the same shoes and walk upon the same spots as others before us. We produce nothing but a reflection of what someone else has built. We believe though that the machine protects, the machine illuminates, the machine supports. We die: we become a ghost to possess someone else's life in order to fill our empty hearts. When that life outweighs what is left from our life, us ghosts will not live eternally, for our life is found only in the body, the life we follow, and not the soul, our own life. We lose our souls in watching others. We may begin to feel the weight of our bodies in comparison to the weight of our souls. Our body may start to drag us down rather than lift us up. But if we refuse the machine's demands and tread across unclaimed land, we become explorers, creating a story that others will be tempted to follow. Hopefully these others will not follow your path, but rather your spirit, the spirit of exploration and independence.