Verbosity

Before

After

As a freshman in high school, I learned that when it comes to writing, less is more. At the time I loved to throw in as many impressive adjectives and clauses as possible, and while I didn't use a thesaurus, with my mindset, I may as well have. Even now, I know I still have a problem with using too many words. Proofreading can usually catch this, but for informal writing, such as on One Iris, I let it slip sometimes, and for that I apologize.

Recently, I've been assigned some rather dense articles for my coursework. As I spent hours pouring over these readings, I couldn't help but despair.

They're just plain bad at conveying information sometimes.

While I admit it's certainly possible that my reading level is just not as high as these academic elites, shouldn't good writing be able to convey one's ideas to as wide an audience as possible? What's the point of such robust vocabulary and advanced (but barely passable) sentence lengths? If the reader gets confused along the way, it's just not good writing.

The images above come from one article that I found to be very wordy and annoying to read, especially for an introductory paragraph. I spent a minute copying it into a word document and cutting it down to see if there was a better way to present the information. I cut down the size by 25% easily. The paragraph on the right captures the same information in a much more succinct way.

Let's consider another example from a rather terrible (in terms of verbosity) article I just read. Here's the first sentence:

"If 'emotion' is taken to mean 'an emotion,' 'a bounded sequence of anger, sadness, fear, and so forth (which are the sorts of events I will for the most part be considering here), rather than some more abstract or derivative usage, than it has not been of central concern in anthropology until recently."

An article full of such language gets extremely tiresome very quickly. Consider the following revision:

"Emotion as a bounded sequence of anger, sadness, and so forth has not been the central concern of anthropology until recently."

It took just a few seconds to come up with this revision, but it conveys the exact same idea in half the words. Why is "rather than some more abstract or derivative usage" even there? Shouldn't such a vague idea be elaborated on in another sentence, or even a separate paragraph? And the parenthesis... Given that you're starting this article by talking about this definition of emotion, I know that you're going to be talking about it, and not the "abstract" usage. These simple omissions improve clarity by leaps and bounds, and really I wish more academic authors took the time to proofread their articles readability.

I understand that this is a pretty silly rant, but it has definitely become a pet peeves lately and I felt compelled to write about it. For my fellow students, please do not adopt verbosity. "Short and sweet" doesn't apply to everything. But when it comes to information transfer, less really is more.

19

Today marks my 19th birthday. 19 is such a strange number. 18 somehow seems to carry more weight, and feels significantly older than 17. 20 of course marks the 2nd decade of one's life. But 19? It's just a transition. The year seems numerically and symbolically to be just sort of, well, there.

As I'm writing this it's currently 3:01am, so I've been 19 for a total of three hours so far. I used to stay up very late just thinking about things, but it hasn't been a habit as of late. But this particular night, I couldn't help but reflect on how 19 is the perfect number for me right now.

Lately, I've been feeling a profound lack of purpose. I guess this could be a common sentiment for the millennial teenager, and I'm probably more disturbed by this than I should be. But what ultimately disturbs me the most about all this is precisely that I don't feel very disturbed about the fact itself.

That's a bit of a confusing statement, so allow me to clarify. As far back as age 16, I recall having a desire to change the world in some meaningful way, to live my life in a way that was out of the ordinary. I wanted to avoid a passive existence, which I saw as nothing more than wasted time as death slowly encroaches on us all.

In my case, this nighttime philosophy rarely translated into any notable daytime action. I walked through life as an academic, elite high schooler much in the same way that my peers did. Although I like to think that differentiated myself in some way, I know that ultimately I bought into what was placed in front of me with little questioning. In the back of my mind, I figured I had to build up my foundation before attempting anything "world-changing."

This way of thinking was misguided. I see now that my existence up to this point is not something I can shake off easily. The habits and thought processes I have acquired are well ingrained into me. I never had to courage to be something different in high school, so it's not surprising that now, though I struggle with a desire to make some grander purpose in my life.

Such is the criticism that I find myself repeating with ever growing frequency as this final teenage year begins. So many people have invested in me, but what exactly should I do with this investment? Am I simply to serve myself and my immediate friends and family? How can I do anything meaningful? Cynicism is a funny thing. You rarely ever notice that you're cynical until you try to be optimistic. But because it is thus so infrequent, one begins to question whether it is cynicism or realism talking, and whether there is even a difference between the two.

When such feelings strike, I feel a powerful drive to overcome my halfheartedness and to do something impulsively, such as signing up for a job, or taking a class I'm not sure I'm comfortable in. Usually these are good decisions, because even if I fail, I've learned about myself and will be wiser for the next burst of "inspiration."

But there are also days where I feel that there's nothing wrong with a lack of grand purpose in life. There are plenty of people who live a simple, locally focused life (in terms of time and community.) They probably have generally happier days than me too. Or perhaps they don't.

My mother recently asked me to rate my life on a scale of 1-10. After complaining about "objectifying life experience" and other pretentious topics, I replied "10."

As I sit here almost upon my fourth hour of being 19, I realize that I feel pretty aimless. But the journey up to this point has been fortunate and joyful. When I think of this fact, I feel a sense of peace with myself, and I know that this inner strength is what will see me through this next year and the rest of them. So for now, I guess I'll leave the future to itself.

Little Things

As the years go by, I find myself more and more attracted to little things. While I wouldn't call myself a shaker just yet, I've definitely come to appreciate simplicity and pure functionality far more than even just a few years ago.

I found the little basket pictured above at a Hobby Lobby store a few months ago. At that time the decision on Hobby Lobby's controversial contraceptive case was still hotly debated, and I had myself been reflecting on what my stance on the issue was.

Walking around in the store that day, I was struck by just how ordinarily life goes on in the face of national attention and for some, even scandal. For the average employee and shopper, the headlines didn't matter. What mattered were those cute flower wreaths, or in my case, those precious little baskets.

It's so miniature, it can barely even hold my phone without tipping over. But there was just something about its old and hand-made look... I could easily imagine a young girl carrying it around a hundred years ago or so. Maybe her doll owned it, and she had a bigger one. Or maybe some farmer long ago used larger baskets such as these to gather his crops. I guess it's one of those odd moments you really have to experience before you can identify with it, but I was happy to pay the $2 to buy it.

Just last weekend I was shopping with my family in an Asian market when my sister pointed out a small tin of Japanese fruit candy on the shelf. These "Sakuma Drops" were featured in Studio Ghibli's "Grave of the Fireflies", which we both had watched, so we were excited to purchase two tins immediately.

Once again I paid $2 and found myself holding what would ordinarily be just a little trinket. But as I opened up the tin and gave it a shake, the sound of the fruit drops rustling against the metal provoked something powerful in my mind. It wasn't simply that I recalled the emotions in "Grave of the Fireflies" (a masterful movie by the way). Rather I began to see how such a simple little tin could mean so much to kids, parents, and anyone else who enjoyed them. There was a humility in the way I had to pry open the lid that limits children's access to the candy. Its no-nonsense construction and appearance really conveyed the long tradition of the candy, which was first produced in 1908. Beyond just being candy, I guess I could again picture to myself a young girl or boy begging mother to pry open the lid to give him/her a sweet treat.

As I reflect more, I realize that these everyday images have taken on a sort of beauty to me. Life is full of complications, big picture ideas, and other grand images. And these are great to be sure, especially for youth. But what keeps us running day to day are these simple memories, and really, I think life's greatest joys often come from them.

There's a couple more objects in that picture that I could write a paragraph or two about. My trusty Pilot V5 pen, which I've been buying since freshman year in high school, holds a lot of meaning to me as the instrument I used all throughout my journey as a writer in high school. My notebooks, so simultaneously clean, yet brimming with intellectual scraps from my life. And even this computer, my companion for much of the day, who has never failed to boot up when I have work to do, or entertain me when I'm feeling tired or down.

In a sense, I guess these objects are no longer simple to me. Maybe I'm just being overly sentimental. But I have a sense that others feel this way as well. Perhaps all things are just like empty canvases, waiting to be filled with the art of one's life and memories.