Blog Assignment #2 - Reading Joan Didion

Didion brings a flawless piece to the table from the very start. "A good part of any day in Los Angeles is spent driving, alone, through streets devoid of meaning to the driver, which is one reason the place exhilarates some people and floods others with an amorphous unease. There can be about these hours spent in transit a seductive unconnectedness." Everyone can relate to this seductive disconnection. Seductive indeed because we always succumb to the rabbit hole, undeniably at some point. Disconnected because we've been enthralled by the succubus. So not only relate-able and truer than a straight arrow, she begins to describe this blank zombie state with a blank style. "There are the same pastel bungalows. There are the same leggy poinsettias and the same trees of pink and yellow hibiscus. There are the same laundromats, body shops, strip shopping malls, the same travel agencies..." She used the world "same" five times here which usually would be frowned upon for being anything but creative. However, she has perfectly used a boring detached setting to describe a theme of seductive unconnectedness. And not only did she use bland to describe bland, but the two parts come together to create a beautifully bland first paragraph as a whole. Her writing has embodied the emotion of the setting she writes about. "There is a definite narrative here, but not a sentimental one, and not one that many people outside Los Angeles seem to hear." This entire piece is emotionless. The reader is graced with the elegance of honesty, one voice I yearn to hear in the modern day. We live in a paradigm where everyone wants to look good, sound good, seem smart but we all know not everyone can be good at everything at all times. The many voices in today's world are almost always embellished. Just enough to seem grander than the next, but not enough to deem further scrutiny. This piece is one too beautiful for us to understand in our infancy of ego. Only hopefully in the future where an honest human is considered the most valuable and beautiful will people truly appreciate Didion's writing.

Welcome To The Eric Chang Paradigm

Welcome, to the enigma I call my mind. Since my very first blurs of a memory, I've lived my life with fascination in everything I have ever come across. However, I subscribe to no school of thought nor identify with any group of people. If my personal philosophies have any credibility, then I would tell you the entirety of our existence and experience is artificial and the sanctuary of god is our own minds. Although I only wish the world to cascade into a lingering river of exhilarating greatness and rapture, it is almost always the darker side of a story that emerges victorious if inspected on the altitude of the progressing as a species. Educational goals? Learn everything there is to learn. Career goals - income so I can endure the colossal task at hand of attaining knowledge. I have never taken any writing courses before so I apologize in advance for any trespassing of invisible laws. And for better or worse, I can only imagine my succinct persona permeating through this digital pen and paper. So without further adieu, my name is Eric Chang, and here are my stories.