This is a paper I wrote for English class. It is about change. That was the entire assignment. Write about change. If you want to, mention Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. It could be fiction, non-fiction, analytical, narrative, whatever you wanted it to be. I tried to just make it heartfelt and true:

"You never realize a change is taking place. Not really, not until it is complete. If the change is happening to you, you’re too close. You can’t see things objectively. You may have a sense that something is happening, but you don’t really perceive a noticeable difference until much later. Similarly, if you are an observer watching change occur in someone else, you are much too absorbed in your own life and problems and changes to notice anyone else’s transformation. It can therefore be concluded that to change, particularly development or regression in character, is an individual process. It is one that must be experienced only by yourself.

I used to hate writing. Which was ironic since I loved reading more than anything else. I would sit in class wondering why they were having us do all this writing. I found no point in persuasive five paragraph essays, no point in a personal autobiography, and absolutely no point in producing a new fictional story every two weeks. I loved reading fictional stories, but I had no desire to write any myself. I would leave that job up to the authors and other professional writers. It never occurred to me that the authors did not just grow out of nothing, they too began as frustrated students and slowly had to enter the world of writing. The world of producing works that many others could relate to on some level and enjoy. In order to complete assignments, I could get the words out and onto paper, but not without struggle and dissatisfaction.

I am a fairly closed person. I don’t like indulging every bit of my life and thoughts and feelings and emotions with even my best friends. Therefore, I never really knew I had feelings and emotions. Obviously they had always been there, but I had no way to acknowledge them. I wasn’t sharing them with others, and I certainly wasn’t writing them down anywhere. Since they never were voiced, they never really surfaced enough for me to examine. And therefore I was always happy and bubbly and without worry. I was known as the eternal optimist who never let anything bother me, because nothing did bother me. At least, I didn’t know anything bothered me. I had never been mad at my friends or my teachers because I didn’t examine anything. I took things as they were on the surface and accepted them at that value.

It was as if I was Franz Kafka’s Greggor in The Metamorphosis before his transformation. He simply accepted the fact that he had to work and make money for his family. And he was fine with that. He thought he was happy and fulfilled and content with life. It was not until he metamorphosed into a beetle that he realized his life had been very simple in both definitions of the word. His had lived a relatively undemanding existence, but it had also been very plain.

About two years ago I discovered writing. There was a then new craze in the Internet world where people would write journal entries and publish them to a website. Others would then read their journals. I began to read other people’s journals. And they fascinated me. In some ways, they were better than books. They were real. They were often simplistic and extremely boring. Talking about how this random person went to school, took a math test, went to diving practice, and came home exhausted. Or that random person went to work, got stuck in traffic on the way there, was late, and almost missed their meeting. But what pulled me in was the reality. There were all these people out there, simply living their lives. Just like I was. And they may live on the other side of the world, but they were living their lives just the same. And they wrote about it.

I had never kept a journal of my own. Because I believed that I hated writing so much, I had never even thought to write in a journal. But upon reading all these other peoples’ journals, it seemed like an interesting thing to do, a good waste of time, at the very least. So I created my own journal, and started to write.

Friday, January 04, 2002

while sitting [...] i came to a revelation.
people are all fake.
i mean this in a completely uncruel and non-judgmental way, but people are all fake. you have to be. i am, or at least i perceive myself to be, very different when i am at home with my family than when i am at school, and different yet again when i am just hanging out in a carefree environment with friends.
people have to be fake. there really, i feel, is no way not to be fake...
...but after writing that, i feel like i should define my meaning of the word fake. what does fake mean? i really am not quite sure. should one's true self be defined by their personality at home? or should their true personality be defined by the way they act naturally with their friends, or how they act at school/work?
how can someone tell if they are being true to themselves?
are you being true to yourself?

(This is a direct excerpt from my journal, none of the content has been edited, except for a small portion which was removed.)

I discovered that I did have thoughts. I did have emotions and feelings. I was amazed at what I could learn about myself through simply writing. And this was only the first time I had written. I slowly began to understand myself. Although there was very little external difference, I felt like a different person.

I have begun to constantly think about what I am going to write next. This makes me a more active thinker. I dissect what I hear into its most basic parts. I weigh people’s motives and try to read their body language. This is a change from the basic thinking and analyzing I did before. I feel like I’m living in a dreamland, albeit a very grounded dreamland, simply because my mind never stops or slows down. It is always contemplating and figuring out what is going on, much like you must do in the oddities present in a dream. When Greggor became a beetle he had no one to talk to. No one could understand him. People often feel like that. Isolation is something that most people try to avoid at all costs. But I feel like an occasional moment completely to myself helps me to find who I am. And instead of just sitting and thinking, I now write. I sit down and I write. Sometimes I type at a computer, other times I write into a paper journal I have, and sometimes I just scribble on little bits of paper. I may not even keep the writing when I am done. It is just the physical act of allowing my thoughts to leave my head that makes me feel the change. The advance in who I am now to whom I will become. And that is not something that I will ever complete.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

I love that I can hear the train from my house. I live several small blocks away from the train. But, at night or in the summer, I can hear it when a train goes by. I can feel it. If I'm leaning against the wall in my room, reading, I can feel the entire house rumbling. And it's such a connected feeling. It seems as if everything is a part of something else [...]

I don’t hate writing anymore. I still do have difficulty writing analytical papers, but other types of writing I enjoy. Both complete narratives and hybrid writing help define who I am. Instead of simply having a sea of thoughts floating around in my mind, writing defines them. It brings them out and forces me to face what I am thinking.
I may not have transformed into a beetle like Greggor did, but I have transformed into myself. I am slowly changing into who I will become. And every moment of every day the change will persist. As my life continues I will think deeper and understand more. I will continue writing to help my evolution from blind smiling child to contemplative, still smiling, adult."

(Sorry for the long post. Since I don't yet have movable type, I don't have that cool contractible feature that people use for long posts.)