And they’re back! We will be presenting a short forum on the topic of cities and urban life. You may recall our previous forum “On Writing”, and the format for this one was the same: a prompt was offered, responses were requested and subsequently shared. First up is ESC who talks about cities through the lens of his personal experience growing up in New York. Do your experiences parallel his?
ESC
Forum: On Cities
I was looking out of the fourteenth floor of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. building on 125th Street in Harlem and I realized how infinitesimal Central Park really is. It made me wonder how much better it would be if the entire Manhattan Island were covered with a lush forest as it once was. The park is a strip of green amidst a multitude of grays, washed-out brick reds, and varying chromes of the city. I’ve always loved my city and always appreciated it in its metallic and petrous glory but simultaneously I love Nature.
Humans came to be in Nature; not simply our physical make-up but our social genealogy was developed in times where there weren’t extremely high numbers of human in one cramped space. Our ancestors only had to deal with immediate family, extended family, and maybe a small village. These interactions were welcome because they were people we knew and loved.
However a funky guy on the subway whose pits are an inch away from my nose is not getting any love from me. I don’t know him, I don’t dig his funk, and there is a one-in-a-million chance I will ever see him again so there is no motivation to be nice to him! This only encourages tourists to think New Yorkers are rude due to my stone-faced demeanor, but really I’m a nice guy; I just don’t like body odor, people stepping on my sneakers, bumping into me, or the high cost of getting on this stress-filled train. The subway isn’t the only urban animal that causes frustration, but the high concentration of people is a common denominator. Millions of individual personalities, emotions, hygienic habits, and manners clash making the city hard to live in, yet amazing to participate in.
That being said I love the frenetic hustle of the city as I everyone’s feet pounds the ground. The subway has the almost poetic movement of a metallic octopus swimming through the water of steel, stone and gravel. I love the anonymity I can assume as I wander through its street in search of something fun to do, because there’s always fun to be had! I guess cities in all of their unnatural artificiality are perfectly human. Manhattan undeniably beats with a human heart, along with all of its good and evil. I guess I love and hate it just as easily.
What has your experience with cities been? How do you feel about what ESC describes? Are cities beautiful or terrible? Creators or monsters? Join us in the comments section below.
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The final installment of the Forum On Writing. Check out the series in its entirety by clicking here.
Forum: On Writing – CB Truce
I write because it’s the closest I can come to representing the world I see on a momentary basis. I write because it helps me organize my thoughts, but most of all I write because I need to write.
Writing connects disparate generations and disparate cultures. My grandfather and my grandson will be brought together, by one constant: the written word. We no longer have oral traditions among our tribes, we have cultural amalgamation in the written word. Reading what others have written gives us a view into their circumstances, their fears, their joys, and their values. Writing allows us all to be brutally honest with ourselves and the world around us.
But writing is flawed. We can only represent truth, not present it as it actually exists. Writing serves as a guide, exposing others to the shadows of the truth we see. The movement from shadows to tangible Forms, is a journey we can only take as individuals, not even as writers. Writing can bring us closer to taking this journey, but not all the way.
I write because Life has outpaced the five-paragraph essay.
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(ThePseudonym)ESC and illDefined already shared their thoughts. Now, ThePseudonym, as expected, drops some serious science on the utility and justifications for writing. But is he right? Is writing just a means of communication? Or is there more to it?
Forum – On Writing – ThePseudonym
In searching for what writing is, I took a moment to reflect on characteristics that make writing “good”. When analyzed literally and definitively, a piece of writing is a visual compilation of markings (letters, characters, etc.). If seen as such, what can make writing good or bad? According to our definition, it could be assumed that the visual quality of the writing would indicate its caliber.
“Good” writing, however, connotes a work that conveys a message clearly and coherently. “Better” writing often puts into words complex and difficult-to-describe concepts. Writing, in the sense most often used, is a means of communicating a point, or idea. It is a mechanism that humans have used to communicate with for thousands of years. The writer is given an opportunity to release and transfer streams of consciousness to be understood by one or many readers.
Writing has many advantages over other forms of communication. Like speech, written words can elicit vibrant and meaningful images and ideas; however, the time required to write and read these same concepts provides time for mental digestion – leading (usually) to a more coherent product. Speech also has the disadvantage of being limited by the social anxieties of the speaker.
Because communication is such a seminal element of writing, text is meant to be read and received by an audience. Diaries are a one-way street for thought – a kind of mental masturbation – that provide no more than therapy and release for the author. Do not get me wrong: I don’t underestimate the utility of writing for oneself, but without an audience, there is no transfer of thought, and no need to write coherently or concisely.
The beauty of writing lies in the true communication of what is on the mind. It allows the thinker to ruminate in his thought before presenting a finished concept to be interpreted and understood by another thinker. Writing allows solitary and concentrated thought to flow in a medium that allows an almost infinite viewership.
Why do you write?
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