Heidi MacLean's final project page.  This is a rough draft and may contain some spelling and grammar issues and typos.

Prospective titles: 

Semi-United

Dumpster Diving

Writing:  

Writing: such is an open-ended discipline and so is perhaps a discipline suited for those who cannot bear to be caged into a rigid framework.  

For a mind which yearns to break free, to probe, to investigate, and not be tied down to any particular niche, this is perhaps a wise way to go.

One of my older colleagues engages me in a dialogue.  She smiles at me.  Not quite knowing what to say, she inquires “So, what are you studying in college, anyways?”

I smile back, hiding a grimace.  “I’m in the English department.  I am an English major.”

“Oh.”  She says with a smile but her eyes are confused.  “...So, what do you plan on doing after you get your degree?”

I sigh inwardly.  “There’s a lot of things I could do.  I haven’t really decided at this point and it is hard to know until I find a particular job when it allows for such a wide range of occupations.”  

She nods with an attempt at understanding.  

Perhaps I am naive, but I don’t care.  I was always told to follow my passions or else run the risk of landing a job that I cannot stand.  With the majority of Americans who have employment pretty much living as slaves with wages, I can see the point of those who have advised me in such a manner.  If I am doomed to live to work and work to live, I might as well find a field of work which won't leave me feeling tired and disgusted at the end of the day.

I can understand her viewpoint, though.  It certainly makes sense to plan ahead to find job security in order to survive in this merciless world.  Relying on luck and taking risks with life is not really the most expedient thing to do.  But I also believe life is more than expediency.  Plenty have the money, the job security, and the material goods that this world has to offer and still manage to be downright unhappy.  Even with my comfortable life, I manage to be downright unhappy.  It’s a choice on my part but at least I am willing to own up to that truth.

Philosophy

Philosophy:  is it just a word?  Does philosophy even have a place in the concrete world?  Who are we to add definitions and parameters and abstract meaning to the mundane when all such things at the end of the day and at the end of life are mere words which may or may not hold truth?  

Though is it not innate to philosophize for some?  Perhaps it is just a mechanism of thought intended to allow our species to evolve, to progress, and to push further in order to prevent the deterioration which would naturally arise if human kind did not push itself continuously in accordance to the scientific laws which state that when momentum and work ceases, what exists becomes bound to disassemble into a state of regression.

There is actually a scientific term for this phenomena, but the precise word alludes me, but it goes in line with the concept of a messy room.  The room becomes messy because the inhabitant does nothing to maintain it.  So it’s not that the individual made a mess, he simply did nothing to keep the mess from naturally occurring.  

Back to the point, there really is no reason to believe that there is a right or wrong answer to say that philosophy or words speaking of abstractions and maybes essentially explain anything.  But I could not imagine my life without such abstractions whether their statements be in vain in adequately explaining reality or not.  

I scan, then, across my own userspace on the course wiki.  The majority of my writings seem to have such philosophy embedded, even if such be mere haphazard attempts, in my drabbles.  

As it pertains to my long-winded piece as it concerns technology and technological usage, the question comes to mind as to how effective words are to make a point.  I certainly do believe that words are powerful to create change on an individual scale as well as on a collective scale, but can words alone catalyze change without accompanying actions?  

I suppose, then, that words are only so meaningful as they are demonstrated in a manner which does not betray hypocrisy.  Words and actions which do not agree along with words amongst other words which also do not agree are perhaps the reason why words are deemed as cheap commodities.  

But what are words?  Do they not have the power to capture and immortalize an experience, an idea, a mental construct of any sort?  Do not words have the power to heal, to kill, and to steal depending on how they are used?

A good word and a kind word timely said, I believe, can bring about emotional health which lends itself towards physical health, being a believer that often the condition of the psyche and the condition of the body mirror one another.

However, words can do much to manipulate and sway entire populations.  Such is the premise behind George Orwell’s 1984.  Such is a leading basis as to how an entire nation renown for its contributions of intelligence could turn towards the most heinous genocide imaginable while being swayed by words of both pride and enmity.  

The Christian religion holds words up to a degree of divinity.  After all, Christ was called God’s word made into flesh.  By the word of the divinity, worlds could be created and worlds could be destroyed.  

In my own life, I know how words have had power to make me and to break me.  Words were enough to make me aware of despair as I lost all faith in myself and in others while being in a stage of development which made me naturally vulnerable to words and their shapening mechanism.  Words were enough to shatter my fragile sense of ego and my fragile sense of self-worth.  Being defeated from the soul, it was enough to make me very unappreciative of my external blessings.  

I combated words with words of my own.  I have witnessed what chaos words misused can create in my life and in lives surrounding me.  At the same time, words uttered aloud, words uttered within, words of prayer, words of nothing came forth to teach me to think and philosophize on deeper levels than the mundane, and so in my own life, I experienced what seemed to be a personal evolution where it regarded not letting the careless words of the cruel and blind to be a reason to become cruel and blind myself.  

And so I answer my own question on the point of philosophy.  Does it matter?  In my own life and in my own time of need, it did.  It was an anchor.  A personal philosophy was essential motivation to move and to do something at all that could surmount to being classified as worthwhile. 

An Anecdote

All fifteen of us are seated in the back room of the Music Gallery. The youngest face in the crowd belongs to me seeing as all but three of the women present are well past their fifties. However, one of those three, a woman maybe in her forties croons away in a slightly off-key manner Memory from Cats. She simultaneously plays the piano accompaniment and so puts herself in the awkward position of doing a triple balancing act of coordinating two hands playing separately intricate parts in an inflexible stream of time while further coordinating her voice to match specific pitches in that inflexible time stream. Watching live performances of Freddie Mercury filmed and uploaded on Youtube where the man attempts to do the same, I can say from my objective observations that playing a very well defined piano part and singing a very defined vocal part at the same time is not the easiest thing to execute.

She hits the final chord and her voice dims out in a waver in the way it wavered out two months ago when she performed the piece. And so we pay that fact no mind and present her a round of applause for hauling along.

She steps down from the grand piano.  Patricia Clemins, the ringleader of sorts of the group makes a few dull comments which I cannot be bothered to remember off hand, and the silence following indicates someone else ought to step up and play so as to break the awkward moment of its awkward silence.  

The father daughter couple -- the Giovannis-- glance my way.  Being fond of the daughter, Abriana, a woman about ten years my senior who sports spectacles, modest attire, and a modest demeanor, and being on positive terms with her father, a violinist and colleague of one of our few local symphonies, I choose to be the one to step up and get my piece out of the way, seeing as the whole point of me wasting two hours of my Saturday morning amongst a group resembling a snooty sorority of older women is to get experience performing in front of an informal audience, to sound more bitter about it than I actually am or ever would be.  Though I understand that others may time to time be prone to hold a similar impression of myself when in my more perfectionist and critical moments, and so I do not mean to cast too much judgment on the individuals present, but I am inclined to believe there are individuals who make it a habit of casting such judgment around towards others that I do not feel too abashed in casting a similar judgment their way in accordance to the law of Karma.  

Of course, I am no fool.  I know precisely what this informal audience thinks of me...at least the part of this informal audience which concerns Patricia Clemins.  

It doesn’t help that she has a personal agenda against my rather...free-spirited piano instructor and mentor.  But here is a woman who takes pride in her technical proficiency of the piano where it concerns having sheet music set in front of her with two staff lines and being able to recreate the piece note for note.

While I admire her tenacity, I do not admire being scrutinized for being different in those regards and yet still managing to play a piece from beginning to end without having to struggle on a specific point due to my tendency to thrive with a lack of external guidelines.

Nonetheless, I wordlessly grab a single sheet of music with me and approach the piano.  The sheet is nothing more than a lead sheet from my late guitar instructor.  Written out in wriggling handwriting are the chords and melody line for Georgia on my Mind.  I set the piece down in front of me, adjust the bench, take a breath, roll my eyes not out of spite but out of an attempt at feigning indifference, and I play.  

I improvise the chords and the chord voicings.  I adjust the octave in order to add a chemistry of sound, creating a sense of breadth by alternating between heavy bass tones to the light and sentimental sound of the upper octaves.  It’s simply what I do and doing so certainly compensates for my own ineptitude in taking a standard sheet of piano music and playing note for note.  I suppose if I was the sort of person to take pride in such a rigid style of playing, I would apply myself towards gaining competency in playing in the standard way.  But the point is I don’t.  

Nonetheless, with my ability to improvise and with my mental index of chords and modes, I can easily pull together these minimal indications, manipulating time and sound to create an on the spot and successful rendition.  And I suppose that is why Patricia looks down on me.

Our ways of playing are wholly opposed on a fundamental level and to ignore that fact is to be delusional.  She senses it.  I sense it.  I don’t mind her differences but my sixth sense tells me she does.  After all, she has been playing for many years more than I have.  I am probably little more than a mere kid who is not serious enough.  But the point is I am.  I just approach it in a way which works for me and brings me satisfaction.  After all, I don’t prefer to play for an audience but for myself.  

But still, sensing her attitude and sensing the subtle but powerful pressure to second guess my way of doing things and to conform to her ways grows intolerable.  After all, I could be sleeping or else spending my time in more gratifying ways.

But none of that changes the fact that I am here playing.  I finish the piece and gain the obligatory applause.  

One of the ladies present immediately approaches me and asks me if she could take a look at my notes.  
“Certainly.”  I say and hand her the sheet.
She studies the chord changes.  “This is based off of a Gospel progression.”  And she says a few things concerning one of the piano instructors at St. Petersburg College who has taught her and many of the other women present things concerning theory on chords, chord progression, and similar theoretical concepts.  

Not knowing the difference, I say “Well, concerning the style of the piece, I would say it definitely resembles a Gospel sort of feel and wouldn’t be surprised.”

She glances at me sharply.  “I know it is based on a Gospel progression.”

I raise an eyebrow at the sharp response but mentally shrug it off.  I’m doing this for experience.  I’m doing this for self-confidence.  But really, I’m doing this because I don’t care.  

I glance at my watch.  Forty minutes left.  I find myself looking forward to going home to where I can not care some more.  It amounts to a somewhat empty, a definitely boring, and a slightly melancholic existence.

Looking back, Patricia Clemins had every right to look down on me just as I had every right to let her look down on me and not care, choosing to go in a manner which suited me and my innate abilities and my objectives without being bothered by her difference in opinion.  Because there will be many Patricia Clemins in this world.  She is certainly not the first I have met and the next Patricia Clemins will not be the last.

Patricia Clemins will appear as a proverbial dead white guy who will tell the rest of the world and I the proper way to write poetry, fiction, non-fiction.  Patricia Clemins will be the insecure colleague who will look down on anyone who is doing “it” wrong, whatever “it” constitutes in the situation.

I realize I cannot change Patricia Clemins who has her own virtues as we all do just as she has faults like we all do.  

I could choose to change myself to fit Patricia Clemins’ world view and deny myself and deny myself the right to show the world a different way to get to Point C without necessarily going to Point A and then Point B in sequential order.

However, I could just not take Patricia Clemins personally, realize her viewpoint is as valid as anyone’s and hope that maybe she will come around at one point or another instead of looking down on her to hide my own weakness in not acknowledging the integrity of my unique process.  

Thinking about her now and thinking about the Patricia Clemins archetypes I have encountered, I realize I have much to learn from her.  She is an obstacle.  If her opinion shakes my resolve, then the problem is my own and not hers.  After all, we all have freedom of thought and freedom of speech.  If I am inhibited by someone exercising that right, then there’s something I have to confront and deal with on my own.  And with that, I have decided that we need people like her to test our boundaries, our convictions, and our own sense of internal honor.  

I am not even remotely bitter or jaded as I was at the time of those real life events and can say I am truly appreciative of the opportunity and experience I had.  Because there will be good times and bad and what we make of those times is up to each of us.  

So to Patricia, I say “Thanks.”  I thank you for allowing me not to take my comfort and peace of mind for granted.  I say thanks for allowing me to realize that there will always be those who will not totally approve of my methods.  And I say thanks because I know I, in my own conceit, will not always approve of other people’s lifestyles, viewpoints, and methods.  

So, in brief, each to his own.  What you do with your life, writing, whatever, is your business.  Find your voice, your style, do heed proper spelling and grammar as much as you can.  But what you write about and why you write is up to you.  And when I say “writing” I really mean anything.  I think that’s the reason I even think back to Patricia Clemins who brings to mind a life lesson so obvious that it’s easy for some people to miss.