“the difference between the right word and the wrong word is lightning and lightning bug”.-mark twain

The words you choose in composing is vital to the essence of the idea. A word carries a cluster of expressions: a metaphor, a symbol, a double meaning connecting concrete with abstract, etc. Using words for just its plain definition and worrying about variety leaves you with careless choices in the thesaurus. What an uninspired waste.

A person is truly urged to write, not from assignment, but when he finds something significant in a momentary experience or during contemplation. Inspiration seeks to bottle the feeling in its purest form, so to crystallize in memory and to share this experience with others. How angry the writer must be then, when somebody vandalizes his work of art, or if his work becomes misprinted.

My teacher once quoted Mark Twain on the difference between the right word and the wrong word. I hereby give my own example. I once wrote “a far-fetched connection will require a certain level of ignorance to detail”, meaning two things far away from each other need a lot of supporting fact to connect the two.

However, an editor mauled the sentence in vanity by “correcting” it to: “a far-fetched connection will require a certain level of ignorance to believe”. Aaaah, ignorance and its counterpart believe. There’s the beauty mark, the artificial mole they drew on my face.

The new sentence is foreign to the whole idea of the original. I wasn’t writing about belief, I was writing about lack of fact. Way to make it sound pretty you careless fascist. Ignorance isn’t exactly synonymous to belief; although the cliché has made it a standard association in today’s culture. But let’s look at other examples beyond my own bitterness.

“Building walls of trust” was a phrase I used to describe America’s plans to a southern border for a vibrant economy. As we all know, a wall is used to separate, keep things out, or barricade things in. The wall is an incongruant to the idea of trust and in such a manner, points out the misrepresentation of public interests in the imperial actions of U.S. foreign policy.

Brevity is the soul of wit: good word choice reflects in the simplicity of sentences. A poetic phrase abridges depth without compromising the full meaning. It isn’t so rigid as absolute philosophy, but is flexible to multi-faceted interpretations. In other words, it tends to promote discussion of its meaning rather than end it. I find that looking at poetry and quotes helps to appreciate the artist for his word choice.

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell” - Aldous Huxley. One can read this and see Huxley expressing the need to imagine another kind of world to compare with the realities of our own. Another can read this and think about how being outside the comforts of oneself helps to understand the inside, like taking a trip. “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative” - Oscar Wilde. I feel this one means that a formula for writing destroys one’s ability to express himself. Others have interpreted this as if senses fail, one still has the shelter of principles he can rely on; or tradition inhibits imagination.

So what class do I take to learn how to write like the great philosophers? I don’t think such a skill can be taught. It is the adventurous spirit of the individual that will guide him through the experience of life. Although, I must admit that I truly would like to take a class on transcendentalist writing.

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