First Impression Best Impression

First Impression

Upon reading a piece of complicated writing my first impression is this person is insane, and it’s really too bad, but this whole thing makes no sense and is about nothing, and I am too busy to read it. I never should have attempted to read it. I have many other things I should be reading like books I bought and things I promised to read for friends, and I have writing to do. I should stop wasting time reading other people’s writing and concentrated on my own writing.

Second Impression

I don’t know why I am trying to make sense of this writing, but like my German tutor told me, I have to break it down like it’s a foreign language. Due to the frequent the use of inappropriate adjectives, which he probably looked up using Thesaurus.com, the entire piece is incomprehensible.

Using a method, I developed, I copy the text to a document on my computer and then look up each word on google. I place a simpler word next to the highfalutin word and place [brackets] around my word. After this is done, I read the article again and begin to analyze both the meaning of the writing and decide if the descriptive adjectives make comprehensive sense in the context of use. Some of them do and some of them don’t. Those that don’t are marked with question marks.

Third Impression

By now I have an overall sense of the meaning of the writing, but something within me wants to rebel against being put upon to do all of this extra work, and waste no further time in going deeper to see if there are any other ideas hidden within the subtext. The more time I spend analyzing the work, the more likely I am to find meanings that may have not be intended by the writer.

“First Impression, Best Impression” is a phrase often used to explain the folly of over analysis. Simplifying the text shows a meaning that is ludicrous, and would be exposed as fantastical had it been written in a clear and concise prose.

We could spend all day trying to figure out if the creamed corn or the white horse had a symbolic meaning in Twin Peaks, only to find out there was no meaning attached to these manifestations in Twin Peaks the Original Series.

Therefore, the style of writing (if one were to enjoy it) is meaning of the work. The value of the entire piece (once we remove any intended meanings that we may find or not find and which may or may not be what the author intended) is aesthetic.

“A loquacious person talks a lot, often about stuff that only they think is interesting.”