A Personal Account

V. S. Naipaul

“[…], by dint of examining it from different mental points of view I eventually see something new in it, and I alter its whole aspect […]” –Stendhal, The Life of Henry Brulard

It is clear how Naipaul in his book Reading and Writing: A Personal Account, follows Stendhal’s line of thought. With this fitting quote he opens the chapter. Throughout his chapter he remembers his life in school, university and with his family in India, Trinidad and England. On a deeper analysis, we could say this chapter represents his self-discovery journey as a writer. He went from having the desire to be one as a child, but having nothing to write about to using his life experiences as inspirations to fill his notebooks. His father, I believe, was a special inspiration for this goal he had.

This book is a form of Naipaul’s autobiography. What it is special about it is that he uses the narrative form to write about his life. Recounting events as if they were stories and using real people he encountered as characters with their own characterization is a form of catching the reader’s attention and to make it more entertaining to read. I have written autobiographies before and I notice that there is a tendency to make my life sound as a list of facts instead of a narrative. I am not afraid to say that it kind of sounds a little boring. There is no dimension to it. By following Naipaul’s example and giving my autobiography a story like sense, it will be more interesting and will make me sound like a better author.

Of course not everything is peaches and cream with narrative autobiographies. Since they are supposed to interest the readers, there is a tendency to exaggerate or maybe create false events so make the story more exciting, or happier, or sadder. We must be careful not to cross the line between fiction and the story of our lives.

Ten Minutes Musings

Front Cover: Outer Journey

Write non-stop without lifting the pen from the paper everything that comes to your mind for ten minutes. This was the first project assigned to us in class at the beginning of the semester. The rules were laid out following Natalie Golberg’s anti-rules in “Writing by the bones”: don’t cross out, keep your hand moving, don’t worry about grammar or spelling, don’t think and go straight for the jugular.

The pressure was on. I knew I tend to get the dreaded writer’s block when writing under the pressure of time. Then again, the purpose of this journal was to defeat these black holes that form in our minds at the moment to write.

Once I started writing I noticed that the most difficult part was ignoring the grammatical and spelling errors without crossing them out with my pen. I found myself crossing out the words automatically and then spend a few seconds scolding myself for it. Going straight for the jugular, that is, writing about something in particular was very difficult at first. My mind kept jumping from one random thing to the other without really arriving to a point of thoughts. Nevertheless, the assignment was to write non-stop, so just as my mind jumped from thought to thought, my hand kept writing all these random things in the journal.  With the passing of time, writing in the journal became easier and easier. Grammar no longer bothered me and I could easily ignore the errors and keep writing what I was thinking. Thoughts started to get organized on what I wanted to write about and the writing in my journal started to look more like very short essays instead or a bunch of random sentences. Soon the journal served as a way of retelling something I did that day or even a recording of dreams I have had the previous night.

Back Cover: Inner Journey

Besides the journal entries, we had to make what we called a “Life Compass”. In it we were supposed to rank our mental, spiritual, emotional and physical state from 1-3 (3 being the highest and 1 being the lowest). Reflecting on my compasses, I noticed that while my spiritual and emotional states were very stable, my physical and mental state varied a lot. This variation mostly depended on where I was writing and how was my day. With the exception of a day that I was feeling very sick, my mental and physical states were mostly at the lowest point when I had a stressful week full of homework and exams.

Decorating the journal to reflect my inner and outer journey was an especially fun thing to do. I decided to represent my outer journey on the cover of the journal and the inner journey on the back. To me this was a trip down memory lane. I got to remember past trips all around the world and all the lessons I learned during each of them. The inner journey pictures served as a way to see how much I’ve grown both physically and as a person with goals and dreams to achieve. It also served as a reminder that I am surrounded by a great support group of family and friends that are always there to celebrate my triumphs and help me get through adversities.  

Life Is A Trip

“Even after death it is possible to lighten the load of a life’s pilgrims”~ Judith Fein, Life is a Trip, Chapter 13, The Other Side of the Pilgrim's Road in Spain

In this chapter of her book Life is a Trip, Judith Fein is walking along with the pilgrims en route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. On this road she encountered countless of diverse people, with and without reasons to walk the road of a pilgrim. Some were just curious, others wanted the spiritual aspects that came with it, others like the hosteleros found their purpose on serving the pilgrims. The burning question our author faced was finding out what was her purpose for the pilgrimage.. She was conscious that she was not making the same sacrifices the pilgrims were making and she asked herself how was she exeriencing a pilgrim’s life. Later she realized that life is a form or pilgrimage. Our life is the journey of pilgrimage we follow and those who we encounter during our life are the ones we serve. Fein starts to reminisce about the people she has helped, among them two new mothers and a young student he wrote a letter of recommendation. She knew that writing about the pilgrims and their journey was also a way for her to serve The Road (as the journey to Santiago was also known) and that this motive was just as important as the ones who when there for spiritual growth and even those that went out of curiosity. This is how she realized she was a pilgrim, not in a literal sense, but as a metaphor of life.

 In my life I have also served as a pilgrim. I worked as a volunteer in a children’s hospital and done community service in a lot of places. Being a pilgrim is someone whot tkaes a journey to a particular destination; therefore we can definitely say that our life is a sort of pilgrimage journey and we decide the destination we want to arrive to and the purpose of the road we take are the goals we set out to achieve.

Life's a Trip Book cover