Early this week the Odyssey team I'm a part of was asked a question that I feel could be relevant to Odyssey as a whole, "What do you enjoy about this experience and/or what's something you want to achieve?" I manged to detail this effectively when it was asked, but I'd like to expand some and start the discussion with others who write for this platform or any platform like this, What do you enjoy about this experience and what do you hope to achieve?
Warning: This is my personal opinion. If you are sensitive to other people's thoughts and feelings and are incapable of conveying them nicely turn back now, but share the article first! If you disagree and are capable of sharing it nicely, good for you. Go buy yourself a latte and feel good about yourself, but keep reading. To anyone who ignored my first warning, share the article first and keep reading at your own risk. This is your only warning.
What I enjoy about this experience is being able to have others see my work and appreciate my views and just being able to get my thoughts out into the world. Not everyone really has that freedom or opportunity and I think a lot of us that have the opportunity to speak out through Odyssey or at all really have to some extent taken it for granted. I know I have. I believe that in my writing people are actually able to see who I am and truly know what I think. I have this tendency to kind of keep my thoughts to myself out of fear of being mocked, but when I write, I've noticed that I don't give a flying fuck what people's thoughts are on my opinions because when I write every thought I put on a page is final. Yes, I can cross it out with the pen or erase it or burn the page, but have you noticed when you erase written words that you wrote in pencil that you can still faintly see what you wrote?
My roommate Samara told me, "When you write your thoughts become something concrete rather than what you feel inside and it's real. Even when that is destroy or lost it was still there and it existed. It's evidence that those thoughts existed." In my writing I tend to be more assertive and grounded in what I believe is right, but I am not always correct, but I am confident. I have been wrong and I'm okay with that. I can take being wrong with constructive criticisms.
I believe that if Odyssey Content Creators can use the gift we have been given in an effective manner, so that we can have the rest of society understand what we are saying, that we might be able to actually get some really change off the ground and fix some pressing issues in society. Not everyone may agree on things and that's okay, but I really appreciate having the ability to contribute to the overall discussion that is happening in the world. I want to achieve something, I don't entirely know what that something is, but I think that doesn't matter right now, it's the journey that gets you to the destination for me. I don't know where I'm going in my life but I believe I'm on the right path to make a positive mark on the world.
