Intellectual Writings

It is interesting to ponder over how various individuals perceive certain notions. Anything and everything can be interpreted in more than one way. Scary thought eh? Taking one such example would be how one of my friends called Maggie (don't be fooled by the obvious gender you may perceive on hearing this name!!) perceives writings as 'intellectual'.

According to Maggie, a piece of writing can be classified as 'intellectual' if the person reading it cannot understand what it is trying to express or convey. On hearing this, I certainly did raise an eyebrow in obvious scepticism. My reaction was more like, “Err...What???” So does this mean if I don’t understand something I can declare that I have come across something intellectual? Or would it make more sense that I am stupid or more like a self-declaration that I am a fool?

Many out there think that intellectual writings need to contain a high usage of uncommon and heavy vocabulary and in Maggie’s words, “No one should be able to understand it”. (Very amusing...). If the line of thought just beats around the bush for most of the time, such thoughts can hardly be called ‘intellectual’.

My take on intellectualism or specifically intellectual writings is this –

Intellectual writing is basically content that showcases a unique line of thought; something brand new. Each idea in this line of thought may be common but the actual sequence of ideas that brings about this brand new line of thinking is what makes the author’s content a notch higher than that of others or in other words, this is what can classify a writing as intellectual.

The usage of uncommon and heavy vocabulary does not necessarily mean that the piece of writing is ‘intellectual’. It just showcases the fact that the author has a good vocabulary and nothing more than that. I have come across many individuals who have a very high standard of vocabulary but fail miserably when it comes to conveying simple matters to other people.

Some people feel poems must rhyme which is incorrect. For all who share the same view, check out these links –

• Curse by Pablo Neruda
• Cousin Nancy by T.S. Elliot
• This Living Hand by John Keats
• Love by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Poetry often is debatable. There is no set format for it. It is just a different way of expressing ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. It is a beautiful way of expression and with the right talent, poetry can touch many hearts in so many different ways.

However, for any writing, one must always look out for grammatical errors as well as spelling mistakes. Personally, I hate to see a word misspelt and what irks me more is when I come across a person who does not really care about spelling. Hence it takes me a long time to post something on my blog as I recheck many times before I post something.

Before I end my views on this, a special message for Maggie –

Gone are the Shakespearean days,
But none of those will ever be forgotten,
In these 21^st century days,
Man hardly has time to spare,
To ponder, to wonder,
So say what you want to say,
So clear, so lucid,
Else just fade away...

Image courtesy - The Internet