Repressed Feelings

Shaun Williams

Capstone Proposal

 For my capstone project, I think I’m going to dive into some uncharted waters. It will be very uncomfortable for me, but I want to challenge myself. Unless you attempt to do something out of your comfort level, you can never grow as a person.

For this project I’d like to dive into my repressed feelings toward my father. He and I have never had a relationship, and I would like to explore why. There is a lot of resolutions I need to make with myself, so why not use this particular project to do that? I have blocked out a lot of things and I have realized recently that I have a lot of residual anger, resentment, and discomfort. I’d like to explore that in detail. I figured that by the end of the project, I will feel more in control over my thoughts and feelings when it comes to him. I’d like to do a lot of “slam poems” about specific memories I have of him, which I thought would be very interesting.

I could also write some stories and get very creative with them. Throw some words around, change and alter some things, and get abstract in what I am saying. I don’t see my project being very cohesive, but rather, fragments of ideas, pains, and memories of the past. After all, most of our memories our broken or missing, and our unconscious mind is constantly filling in the gaps in our experiences. There are going to be MANY gaps in my project…many questions left unanswered. That is okay though. This has been a big year in my life. I finished my autobiography, started my art business, and will soon be graduating. I felt it was especially important to get a handle on how I really feel towards my father. I found out recently that he is moving to Chicago. He wasn’t man enough to tell us himself, of course, so I had to hear about it from one of his girlfriend’s Facebook posts. Maybe I could add that into my project. All in all, it will make for an intense creative ensemble!

Meaning?

Shaun Williams

CRTW Capstone

A Guide to Poetics Journal

Research Writing Piece

 

“The affirmations in the text may be made in such ways that they will need to be challenged. A reader who approaches such writing to put pieces together and figure out what the author means is likely to feel cheated, because the author’s intention is not to convey a whole statement that absorbs potential dialogue but rather to convey a framework of significations of urgency and coherence and interest in itself, for reading.

Identities, doubts, passions, recollections, dazed impressions, specific needs, criticism, awe, distraction, sensuality, and an urge towards the realization of understanding in a form still operate, at will.”

 

When I read translations, I poke around the words.

Not at them, guessing at a reality not hinted at

But encoded by some prisoner from another world—

Nobody’s perfect; but I relish the quest for the peculiar nature

Of some original writer, unknown to us

but through his function.

 ***Before I officially started this program, I was a total prescription writer…boring, bland, and obvious. 1+1=2…that was my writing style. That’s why the above passage from Poetics Journal speaks to me so much. It is basically saying that it is not only freeing to step outside the box and abolish old conventions, but totally necessary. The reader has to make up his or her own mind, whether the text is together or scrambled up into some abstract interpretation. In other words, interpretation is a must…so why not make the reader really try to find meaning? I wrote a poem that a reader would really have to dissect and put into pieces to get some kind of meaning from it. When I used to write poems, I would write them so that they totally made sense in a conversational way and that each line flowed clearly into the next. This piece is the opposite of that.

 

I write what I write so that you might know the difference

Between a pond and a river.

One flows through mediocrity…

Mountain sights you let me in on.

When I say “sea” you tell me “me!” How could you ever

Untangle an algorithm???

Breathless, flightless, fearless…that’s what my memory is.

Can’t stop the rushing river when it’s about to flood

With sugar and spice.

I write this so you will re-write it…so that you may wrap it around your dexterous finger.

This is a want within a want within a want within a hope.

Keep saying this until it is true.

 

Assignments

1. “Snap, Snap, and Share? A Nuanced Approach to Privacy and Online Photo-Sharing.”

I found the article stimulating, albeit very technical, and very practical to real life behavior. Since the invention of the first Kodak camera, things have really taken off in a social sense. It’s funny how any particular invention starts off as something but eventually becomes or produces something entirely different. The climate has changed drastically not only with the advent of the internet, but with the global popularity and insidiousness of social networking, and thus, file and photo-sharing. Photo sharing almost seems mundane now because it is so common. Most people will share a photo during the day in some way. I was amused when the two authors of the article brought up how people share physical photos with intimates in their homes, and still do today. Because while although they still might do that, that has kind of become obsolete. It makes me wonder just how many people actually share photo-albums with others. Everybody wants to see pictures over the internet now-a-days. Google, facebook, twitter, flicker, etc…

             The authors brought up interesting points when they shifted into digital inequality influences on privacy management online. The term “privacy management” seems a little superfluous and ambiguous to me, because my generation is far from private. They don’t care what they post or who will see it. They want attention, drama, and chaos. Especially with facebook—people post sexual and private photos of themselves or friends and cast them out into the world of cyber space. I bet George Eastman could have never even imagined that, much less seen it coming. But they bring up some good points. Technology ownership, number of hours users spend online, years of online use, and past consumption behaviors really affect privacy management in photo-sharing. All of those are elemental grounds for research.

It was interesting that digital media experience was a sample in their data and research among college students. Obviously one must need that kind of experience to navigate the treacherous online climate of networking and social media outlets. This is a relevant topic but I’m not sure I liked the poll that they did let alone their basis for study. A topic like this is very hard to study because it is always shifting and evolving. There are so many x-factors and variables associated with it, that it’s difficult to know where to begin.

 

2. Context for Dahlen        

             For this assignment I decided to utilize the three books that were sitting on my office desk. I wrote this using information from the first page of each one. The first book is called “Messages of Effusion” by Jack White. The other two are “Marketing,” by Hartley, and “Achieving Anything in Just One Year,” by Jason Harvey.

 Pick me up laces where others meet you. Effusion at Amazing Life Press. How can this be anything but ordinary? Set goals and stick with them, manual hints sprinkled about. Instructors get Jack White and Governor Rick Perry. They may not need that but I don’t give a damn. I give a dang…plain and simple.

Filtering students is tragic because self-improvement isn’t certified. Anybody can do it! After all, it does not take a genius. Learn to equip yourself with a happier life, which ultimately is the mystery of making it. The wind dissipates from your sails with buyer behavior. Golfers, pros, and amateurs experiment with justification…the founder of Limitless Institute. Somewhere in Seattle I would imagine??? I could be wrong, because I’ve been wrong many times before.

Copy, and paste…but don’t hate. Hate is for inspiration only. Like having a GPS in your marketing division. That is the company history.

What type of buying is associated with smart dust?

What will change in 365 days?

Who will become my personal coach in the arts?

Does black and white really equal Jason Harvey?

What is the fresh thought for ISBN delivery?

Am a making sense, or am I making context?

Context is the only reality that we have. Mutually agree?

Without context, there is no power.

Without power, there is no context.

Without AA batteries, there are no oil painters? Wait, that can’t be write, can it?

Play with the boundaries of your world and glue them around to make your point. Don’t settle for cohesiveness! Open yourself up to new possibilities. Because when I had the Malady of Fear, you can bet that I had personal success. Here is the secret to achieving anything in just one year—“The Big Bertha.” She will hold onto the hand rails for you and monitor the vital signs.

Which feature writer failed to buy an espresso machine? I don’t have the answer to that, but I might care more in ten years after I have woken up in the morning. The company and technology cannot be understood in an unfulfilling existence. Bearer of bad news can help you take the small steps to a better you.