Somali Tales

This post is all over the place, but maybe you can help me! I must choose on what I should do about my degree: should I change my major for Literature when I go back to uni, next February? Or Should I keep on with Philosophy? The third option is not going back (I already have an MA) and learn by my own, through hard work and lots of time? What do you think?

The post

Sometimes I overthink all of this. I want to share all my work, all my readings, and all my findings but the posts quickly become over-complicate and academical, and that is not always a good thing.

One day eventually, I want to be a published author. Not a published philosopher (because that is almost impossible!).

Academic writing is what I’m trained to do, but I want more creativity in my writing. I want to talk about my passions, notably for philosophy, in a natural manner and to a large audience. Like an ongoing conversation between acquaintances or friends.

As for the right conversational tone, I’m learning that it is a hard skill to acquire. One which requires a lot of thoughts and investment. Well, whether it is money or time, I’m willing to put some effort into it, but I don’t want to over-sell this dream of writing.

I keep writing pieces fast, like I’m submitting a school essay and instead of the good or great grades, I get some rejections. I’m always happy about the feedback, but to be honest, I’m not the most patient and this writing journey is really pushing me to release a lot of expectations.

The writing world is indeed very different from school or academia. In a sense, it can be even more ruthless but also full of opportunities.

To work on my skills, I used different medium for a couple of months, but it seems that my growth is not fast enough for me. I want to move ahead faster than my learning curve. At least, I’m progressing, one can say, by reading a lot and analysing what is special about some writers’ techniques. There are so many talented people who are willing to share their method, and they do a great service to us “newbies.”

But for a runner like me, I’m too slow. I want to be up the mountain, and cherish the view.

It’s not like I’m looking for a shortcut or neglecting the beauty of the process. It’s just that I regret not investing sooner in this passion. I have been journaling and writing for myself for many years now. I have thousands and thousands of words no one else will ever read. Whether it is an opinion on something I’ve read (so many of those), a summary of psychology article, my understanding of some theories and so on.

But they were never destined to be shared.

Once I decided I wanted to share my writing with the world, I came up with a plan: write and publish. That’s it. That’s what I do with my assignments, except I do a lot of research. How hard can it be, since I already proved that my scientific writing was good? I thought I could focus on the “content,” or the “substance” and not the form, but they are inseparable.

Instead of ease because of some scientific training, I realised it was very hard to publish something worthy. Moreover, it requires so much self-confidence, something I really struggle with. I want to be able to write great and relatable story with ease, because right now, it requires so much effort from me.

In fact, my posts can be written quite fast, like an essay, but it does not help my progress. Publishing the first draft is a big mistake I made several time. One must learn to edit, again and again. One must let the story sit, and come back to it, with a fresh eye. One must polish it and one should never be easily satisfied with a quick result.

Even knowing this, I still want to move on from the technical difficulties and let the story and the non-fiction articles pour out of me, without the limitation of language and all the technical flaws.

I want to master the craft, to be able to tell my stories, without being frustrated by the limitation of my written language. That is my goal. And the faster I achieve it, the happiest I would be.

In fact, I’m seriously considering changing the course of my degree and doing a MA in literature and philosophy as a minor. This would help me grow faster, even if I don’t finish the degree.

I’m considering it, because philosophy is my passion, but literature too. Just like cognitive sciences and healthcare. I contain a multitude and want to foster this diverse interests. However, to develop my writing skills, I guess I must make some hard choiced.

In my opinion, non-fiction is easier than work of fiction, because we all have been trained on some level to write our thoughts about something real in our lives or something we learned about.

Whether it was talking about our holidays when we were school children or argumentative work in high school, we all have experimented with non-fiction essays.

What philosophy brings to a conversation, or to a non-fiction piece is that it heightened the argument. A really well reasoned and logical argument has something special. Something almost artistic. We find ourselves completely overwhelmed by a new way of perceiving the world, by talking about a difficult subject and so on.

For example, I was completely changed by a bioethicist work on animal “freedom.” Before that, I was sympathetic to animal cause, but I did not question how awfully we treated them, because it wasn’t under my view.

I was just not aware, while not only the ethicist made me aware, but he made me care.

And that is why I cannot give up entirely on philosophy. I need it in my life to become a better person. But literature contain some philosophy and I can focus on one branch.

What a hard choice.

What do you think? What would you choose, if like me, you dreamt of becoming a publish writer one day, with a novel you are proud of?