Among the things that I learned while running amuck through the study of psychology was the fight or flight response. The fight or flight response is just what the name implies; the response to a given situation that is dealt with through either violence or cowardice. Now in the little metaphorical snow globe that I live in, the word situation in the definition above is replaced with question.

   Yes, you read that right, questions are to me, as clowns, heights, or spiders are to millions around the world. If I have to be specific it’s those short questions that really get to me. I’m pretty sure that you’ve encountered them from time to time: how are you doing, how’s life, can I take your order? (That last one still haunts me). Now the icing on the cake are questions that in no way shape or form can be answered with a simple yes or no, and from a contract between the two parties the moment it leave the recipient’s lips. “Why do you write”, is one such example. There is no way around the question, no amount of sliminess will allow you to wiggle out of this conversation that could possibly last seconds, and God forbid it lasts minutes.

   Now, I believe an amount of explanation is an order. This illogical fear that I claim to have, while it may seem like a thing unfathomable to most, is actually quite so. In a literal context, I don’t shrivel up when faced with a question that hosts many outcomes. I don’t fly or fight, but I will say this; my heart does beat faster, I may start to sweat, my voice may even crack under the pressure. This is due not from a lack of control, but from lack of preparation when posed with questions that have millions of right answers and even more wrong answers.

   So on to the big question. Why I Write? 

 

   Back in high school I came across a very touchy subject, one which my beloved English Instructor thought was her destiny to teach. Feminism. Please, let me explain. The outline for what we, as a class, were going to read is as follows (and let it be known and absolutely clear that this class was in no way shape or form supposed to be a class on feminism, it was honors English, period.):

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

Frankenstein

My Ántonia

The Fountain Head

Lamb to the Slaughter

Julius Caesar

(And another novel by a man that needs to remain unnamed)

Three male authors, Five Female authors. Books by males were relatively short, only took up approximately one fifth of the class.

 

   At first I didn’t mind. Reading Jane Eyre gave me a high like no other book had given me before, and Frankenstein was a very nice addition to the Halloween season. The professor was a decent teacher, there was only the ever so annoying and absolutely unnecessary need for her to bring up gender into everything. She lost face as a teacher when a friend of mine casually asked her if she was a feminist. The conversation went something like this: (names have been changed in order to protect the identities of the socially burned)

“Ms. Frau, are you a feminist?”

“Yes, yes I am Manny.”

“But at least seventy percent of this class has been on female authors, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Women need equal representation as men do.”

“But Seventy-Thirty isn’t equal representation.”

“Listen Manny” (This was said in a very manner of fact voice)

“No, you know what?-Censorship required, trust me- Good day Madame!”

“Excuse you?!”

“I said good day!”

 –Slams door-

-Curtains-

-Everybody claps-

   He never stepped foot in that class again, he was moved to remedial English for expressing his opinion. I mean he had a point, not a really good point but he had weight behind those words. Where was HG Wells, Orwell, Steinbeck, and Salinger for god’s sake?! I didn’t get a chance to read Catcher in the Rye until I got to college. That is the definition of sad. Didn’t Orwell say that he writes because there is some lie that he wants to expose? Let me help you out, yes, yes he did, but I wouldn’t know. He wasn’t in the course guide.

 

***

   This next part may seem like a strange transition, but believe me when I say that I genuinely started writing when I found certain text that I absolutely hated, (last author that will remain unnamed). I was a bit unfortunate to have a teacher that took things a bit too far in light of her political views, which brought a barrage of essays I hated just as much as the text. She made our writing about her political views. Unfortunately this lead to nothing really changing with my writing until I entered college. Actually I tried to express my own political views and got ripped to shreds with wave after wave of professional college level language and comma positioning—not pointing any fingers, but I wasn’t prepared because I was never taught. There are actually rules when using commas! I didn’t know that.

 

   There was a lot that I didn’t know going into college. For one, I didn’t know that people in Ann Arbor where so touchy. Yea I said it, you’re all touchy. I didn’t know that having a Mac Book, and sipping on disgusting coffee—That would easily bankrupt me if I drank more than three cups— automatically made me a writer. I didn’t know that being quiet automatically made me suspicious and anti-social, and when I say anti-social, I mean the psychological disorder. The list can go on and on, but it all winds down to this being the best place, and the best opportunity to become an author with some merit. I write because if I don’t nobody else will express the ideas that I have. It also proves to be the best stress relief after a hard day. So in turn, why do I write? Honestly, because if anything, I want to be a writer. I know what kind of writer I don’t want to be, but to get to the type that I do want to be, I need a better grasp of the art of writing. If the story says anything, it’s that as a reader, I know what I like to read, and that’s the kind of stuff I want to write.

 

   While in my time in the Writing Minor, I have developed the use of a format which was never before used by me, satire. I chose to develop my knowledge on satire because I thought that it could be a powerful and beneficiary tool at a later date. I was also very interesting in seeing why everyone had a different definition of what satire was, so I resolved to get to the bottom of this question; what is satire? The answer of which will can be found here.

     Why satire you may be asking. Well that is a good question, to which I don’t exactly know. I think it suits the type of writing style that I wished to emulate but never really learned how to do it properly. In making an entire project that will revolve around the topic of satire in a political and social setting, the project has served as a jump starter.