ON PURPOSE: an essay in seven parts (6/7)

VI. Discovering English

I decided a long time ago to live off whims. I would engage every passing desire and see where I would end up. Why not? We only live once. Why not gain as many different kinds of experiences that you can instead of doing the same thing day in and day out for your whole adult life only to hibernate in your (statically probable broken) home once becoming a senior citizen?

Moving back to my father’s homeland was likewise a whim, and like all whims reasons follow after the process. I just figured I had to be here if for nothing else than for the change in environments, slowing down my life, and gaining unique life experience. When I grow up I aspire to becoming a writer. Not just any writer. A writer of a classic novel. This profession, in my mind, embodies everything I have been discussing about in this piece: the meaning of life, free will, nobility, and moving forward. My stories will be a backdrop, a sort of bass line, to themes and variations that embody basic human problems and in the end they will resolve into a new discovery, and it will be beautiful.

I once read somewhere that the thing take drives us forward is most of the time unknown to us. It is hidden out there somewhere for us to find. I found a fragment of it! I discovered English! That sounds bizarre, huh? Let me qualify. I have always been interested in words. I have always been interested in the many ways a person can say one thing. Why does he choose saying “I went on a slow walk this sunny afternoon” instead of saying “I gently strolled on this bright afternoon”? Do these word choices even really matter?

Currently I am working as an English teacher to children and adults whose first language is not English. This job enlightened me to the inner workings of the English language. I now think of English in different terms than I used to. Before English was just a natural reaction, much like a reflex, and I just happened to have a big vocabulary (Thank you reading!). But now, I think of what tense I should say something in. I think of syntax. I think of all those rhetorical tools stored about in Poetry for Dummies. I know how to explain word choice. What better youthful job for a future writer to have!