Music, Poetry, and Philosophy

Over these past years, I have enjoyed messing around with various literary genres. I started out writing songs when I learned to play the ukulele and refined that skill as I moved on to the guitar. I liked being able to use my voice and the accompanying music to add atmosphere, emotion, and rhythm. I would use songs to express my thoughts and what was going on in my head and heart. I soon realized that with music, I could communicate what otherwise would not have been possible. However, I also recognized the boundaries that existed due to the nature of a song and my limited ability to mold it.

I decided to expand my field and delve into a more philosophical or contemplative form of writing. In this genre, I left music and rhythm by the wayside and began to journey deeper into specific topics I found interesting and important. Now, I was able to use rhetorical tools to express complex thoughts and more directly discuss a certain matter. I found it refreshing to ignore cadence, rhythm, and rhyme to focus more on precise wording. Contemplative writing allowed being creative, but I felt there were still thoughts and matters I was not quite able to grasp within this genre.

That is how I discovered the power and magic of storytelling. Stories seem to hold a special place in our hearts. We love them and have been passing important ones around since the dawn of humanity. The beauty of a story is that one can take a topic meant for philosophical writing and explore it with a bit more emotion. Through stories, you meet people and see the world through their eyes, helping build empathy and understanding. Exploring this form of writing was challenging. It takes patience to build characters and bring them to life.

Then, just recently, I discovered poetry and saw what a beautiful art form it is. Poetry is in ways similar to songwriting but without the music. Word selection becomes quite a bit more crucial. The length of a writing can be altered to fit the text perfectly. I fell in love with throwing down a few lines and making something of it in my spare time. Through poetry, I began to learn how to express a lot with a little.

I continue to enjoy these literature forms and look forward to discovering new ones along with the unique abilities they offer. What I have learned is that each of these genres I have become accustomed to allows me to share thoughts in different ways. The content and genre of a writing are deeply intertwined with one another.

Years ago, I would have found these thoughts to be quite boring; now, I can't help but be fascinated by the depth and beauty of it all.