drop everything and carry seeds

In The New York Times, Christy Wampole wrote about essays:
"The Essayification of Everything."
She said,
"I believe that the essay owes its longevity today mainly to this fact:  the genre and its spirit provide an alternative to the dogmatic thinking that dominates much of social and political life in contemporary America.  In fact, I would advocate a conscious and more reflective deployment of the essay's spirit in all aspects of life as a resistance against the zealous closed-endedness of the rigid mind...."

Reader Comments on this article included these --

from Paul Aviles - Syracuse, NY -- I think Wampole's point (or one of them) is that there is much "merrymaking" to be had in non-fiction as well and that one of the enduring pleasures of the essay is that it is NOT restricted, that it can roam, wander, wonder unfettered...

from Sonya Huber - Statesboro, GA -- ...I don't think the essay needs necessarily to be a self-centered form.  The fantastic and subtle essays of George Orwell are one example among many of essays that reach outward to engage with values and communities as well as with the self.  I'm not sure that personal stability or comfort is a prerequisite for essayism, because the shifting self might be the embodiment of the essay form.

Aviles-Syracuse, jumps back in --
Right on!
For me one of the problems and HUGE limitations of the "essay fever" we've experienced in the past few decades in the U.S. is that "essay" has been taken to mean the "personal essay" almost exclusively.  Surely the form is NOT so limited, and Orwell is an excellent example of the genre as it engages with the world at large.

Your point that the shifting, up-for-grabs, contingent self is quintessentially essayistic is spot-on.

Thanks for your post...

from Washington, DC -- Marvelous and erudite essay on essays and essayism.  I write essays several times a week and for me they are often processes of thinking out loud.  When I start, I have no idea how I will end, but too often I end with questions.  In my latest essay I force myself to end with an answer:  How Does One Bring About Peace on Earth?  Farm.
Drop everything and carry seeds all over the world and hand them out for free.  Violence can kill only so many of us.---------------- [end Reader Comments]

ok-then; interesting

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