1. Conversational style
2. Frankness and honesty
3. Flexibility and adaptability
4. Humor and cheek
5. Free-spirited-ness
6. Contrariness
I have always written as I talk, or have aimed to talk as I write. Anyways, for that reason and more, the personal essay seems to be the style or format I tend towards. I like writing about myself (who doesn't?) but know when I am being too, say, indulgent in egotism or inflationary language. So I love the honesty. Also, I feel that I am possessed of a very changeable and fickle mind, so enjoy the freedom of being able to go wherever its flow takes me (it usually returns somewhere near where it submerged into that random tangent). Stream-of-consciousness writing is all well and good, but it has no point, no major goal, and I am grateful that an essay at least tries to convey a central point, idea, or feeling. Also, what Lopate says about an essayist trying to come to the central idea by coming at it from all angles rings very true in my understanding of consciousness; it is so big and multi-facted, like an enormous diamond that we can only see one facet at a time. So we can only truly speak about that single facet, and form a portrait of our topic that is more genuine.
I also enjoy humor. So the personal essay (which tends to be cheeky) really gets me. It's just so FUN to go and become an impish little voice which can make a mountain out of a molehill and not catch any flak for it. Artistic license and all that. Anyways, I look forward to the remaining essays that we're going to write in class, and hope I can be natural, relax, and let them write themselves.
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