Ponder Place

Thoughts on Writing:


'Writing that moves you' Paper...

            Find a literary work or quote that 'moves' you. It's not just an everyday thing to be 'moved' by something. In fact, I spent more time looking for a quote that did so then I'll probably spend writing this assignment. Maybe it's just me holding that word, 'move' in a higher-than-intended standard. It'd be different if I was asked to find a song or a movie that moves me, because there's so much more depth and time for the audience to be affected. But writing that moves me? Maybe if I was able to choose an entire book... But then it wouldn't be the writing that moves me, it'd be the story.

            As I scoured the internet looking for inspirational quotes, I found alot of movie lines, song lyrics, and Bible verses. While I'm not denying the profoundness of these, it wasn't the direction I wanted to go. I was getting frustrated and was about to just pick one so I could complete the homework assignment before I found a quote by the late great Dr. Seuss in his Happy Birthday To You book. "Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is Youer than You." I wasn't necessarily moved, but it was a breathe of fresh air to find a deep quote that was both simple and short. I remember reading Dr. Seuss books as a child but I always remembered them being full more of just strange illustrations and rhyming nonsense. His quote was anything but rhyming nonsense and it surprised me, so I searched to see if he had anymore. As I tore through his quotes page by page, assuredly exhausting google's servers, I was astounded by the amount of profound quotes he wrote in his lifetime.

            It was at this point where it stopped feeling like just a writing assignment for English. I started finded online copies of entire books of his and reading those. He was famous for being a children's author, but much of what he said was way deeper than the understanding of kids in grade school. I finally decided on a quote of his that kept popping up in each site that I visited. 

"We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find

someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and

fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

I finally found a piece that 'moved' me. It's short and simple, but yet has so much depth and body to it. It simplifies the complexities of love into two words, 'Mutual Weirdness.' His use of the pronoun ‘we’ puts himself in the same category as the reader as if to say we’re all in this together. He’s not just writing down words, he’s writing down his experiences and it holds meaning to him. It's strange that this quote would move me because of how silly it is. He seems to use repetition of weird and weirdness to lull you into an almost playful state of mind throughout the quote. Until you reach the end and read the last word, 'love.' A word responsible for so much pain, but yet so much happiness. A word that has spawned wars and ended them. A word that all of us can relate and have some sort of emotional reaction or memory conjure every time we hear it.
            On a personal level, weird is a perfect adjective for me. Most people don’t even realize how weird I actually am. It’s those that are close to me and have known me for a long time that see this because I’m comfortable enough to be myself around them. That’s all that I ask of the future girl of my dreams. I just want to be able to be myself around her and be happy. Our weirdness certainly needs to be compatible. And I look forward to the day that I meet her and fall into mutual weirdness… love.