Influence

Before I begin this piece I would first like to take the opportunity to direct your attentions to a blog from not so many months past that shares a similar title and subject matter to this ensuing entry which is surely destined to captivate your immediate conscious. I felt it necessary to make mention of it, for it covers most, if not all the sentiments which I am about to convey, or reconvey as it so happens.

Hamish - my adored and admired comrade and colleague on this little, big hearted blog - expressed his perceived notions of the topic through an array of personal experiences over years gone by. The influence of family and friends; arts and cultures; the stars and heavens above have so impacted my rouge tinted and amply adjectified compatriot, transforming him from persona to persona - each of which I loved and cherished with growing fondness – that I feel compelled to pay tribute to him and his scriptures with a turn of my own.

In the hope of achieving a somewhat varied description of said topic, I have endeavoured to present my argument within the confines and stylings of the text itself. Permit me to explain a step further. At the time of penning this eloquent piece (or typing as the case may be in this modern day, though it does lack a certain grace to name it such), I happened to be reading a book entitled Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; a masterful piece of literature, not unlike some of that found only on this magnificent site, with a gripping narrative and compelling characters.

Now before I mislead you any further, I do not make some allusion to a narrative present within this pretentious ramble that grips; or characters contained inside this elegant entity that compel (though none can deny dear sweet Hamish’s compellation of my affections only moments earlier). Nay, I must disclaim that this is not my intention; it is my intention rather, to highlight the style in which Dickens writes his novel and the manner in which it has so ingrained itself upon my subconscious. His long, expressive and generously punctuated sentences that command the attention of the reader; his liberty to use and abuse the boundaries of his language to further deliver his intentions; his extensive vocabulary and imagery which echoes throughout the mind with a poetic rhythm; all these are absorbed and fall from the immediate conscious only to later return as an unsuspecting influence mid sentence during the day’s conversation or mid thought during the night’s pensive self reflection.

I have found that this phenomenon occurs often: while reading Marching Powder, one man’s recount of a South American experience, I found myself borrowing his mannerisms whilst recounting a South American experience of my own; Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy inspired me to implement a sci-fi element to a story I was ‘typing’ at the time; for the week or so throughout my reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein I found myself with a substantially enhanced vocabulary and a penchant for speaking like times of old. As for Dickens and this blog…well the proof is in the pudding is it not? (perhaps not, one may question the relevance of such a saying upon such a pretext but fuck it Im not perfect…

- Eden (while listening to Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd)