Saturday, February 2, 2008

Mental dynamite

Last night I saw a 2006 movie called "Accepted." The premise is that a high school kid creates a fake college to pacify his status-conscious parents, who've flipped at the news that he was rejected by every college where he applied. So Bartelby and his friends create a logo and website for South Harmon Institute of Technology. One thing leads to another and pretty soon the fake college has a real campus peopled with hundreds of other supposed rejects.

Of course the forces of darkness try to bring down the operation. But Bartelby counters by arguing that the key to real learning is picking something you care passionately about and pursuing it on your own.

I couldn't agree more.

And that's what a writing course like this one is really about. When you are drawn to a story, and set out to tell it accurately and well, you're saying "this is what I most want to learn right now." Then you make it happen, just like one of the characters in "Accepted" whose goal was to blow things up with his mind.

1 comment:

HealthyDawg said...

I watched part of that movie over the weekend too, while at a classmate's apartment. I couldn't watch the whole movie- had to leave to do school work. But the parts I saw were funny. Lewis Black is comedic gold.
I can honestly say the thought "I bet I'll read about this movie on the health and medical journalism blog" never crossed my mind. hehehe. Nice comparison.