Essay and Journal

I seem to have no patience for the essay. Here I am speaking more as a writer than as reader. As a reader, I quite admire a coherent extended argument, but as a writer I quickly grow bored. Much prefer to write in a less sequentially ambitious manner – to make isolated distinct points; the kinds of things that can be written in a single session. I also like to return to the same idea a number of times, each time trying to tease out new features and possibilities. Rather than a linear argument, I circle around the topic and push it in additional directions. The problem for me with the essay is that it obscures my actual process of thinking, which proceeds in fits and starts, which is deeply iterative, which worries a problem until it reaches sufficient clarity to no longer be interesting. This is why I prefer something like the journal form, which permits these kinds of returns, which employs temporality as a line upon which thought can play.