Hello. My name, for what such names are worth, is Dinsule. I am a member of that often country known to many as America, and to scarcely fewer as the United States of America. I cannot seem to decide weather or not I am proud of this membership, this citizenship--it often seems an ideological double-edged sword. I am both proud for the democratic accomplishments of the nation, proud for less remembered triumphs of Americans and their country ... and distressed at the great error of seeing democracy as the only bright light in the world that so many Americans commit. Yet pompously and erroneously driven as some of my fellows may be, as I may be--I cannot entirely dismiss the at times illogical bond I share with my nation of birth.

I am soon to step out of the nest and off into the wide, liberating expanse of college. At times, however, this expanse seems only moderately more free than my current mode of existence, but there is little to be done about it. For very nearly the past two decades, I have wandered the Earth, and wondered at its many facets (or rather, toddled about my tiny corner of the world and wondered at the places I have yet to see as well as the many layers of those I have). I have always enjoyed the pursuit of knowledge, the satiation of curiosity, the manipulation of thought, diving into the endless sea of the theoretical ... the possible ... the may-be. A natural extension of my passions brought me into contact with the twin worlds of literature and authorship, yet while I feel a deep need to write and to let flow my passions, much in the manner that others display their own in my beloved novels, I have ever felt an absence of talent and artistry that would bridge the gap between my love of writing and some distant mass of essays, poems and stories. I suppose part of my artistic void is, in fact, a void in my ability to decide precisely what to write about. Or at least, what to write about other than myself or my thoughts word for word. Whenever I attempt something more abstract, involved, or spiritual, it is as if the ink in my pen, upon reaching the smaller opening in the tip, were unable to form into file without courtesy and democracy bringing the fluid to a disheartening halt.

I write music with greater success. My instruments are the guitar by whim, the cello by education, and the voice by necessity and familial immersion. I was raised in music, though my parents are not precisely musicians themselves (well, my mother was in a choir for much of my early youth, and my grandfather still participates in his Fellowship's choir). Whether my nature, nurture, or choice, I became immersed in music such that now it is as substantial in me as my blood ... I cannot claim unusual musical talent or aptitude, but the music flows through me all the same. Whether or my creation and my imagination, or that of another, music waters my roots and fills me with life. As for the writing, I mostly fiddle with my guitar until some chord progression sounds right and sticks in my ear ... then I play with it some more, and on such rare moments as words come, sing most of a song in a single session making some adjustments to verses as I go. While I previously worked from memory, hoping that a good tune would hang around, I recently treated myself to a recording device that is aiding things greatly. Now I appear to have (relatively) too many songs progressing at once and thus move at approximately the same pace, albeit with less redundant effort. I suppose a pen and pencil would have helped, as well, but I never seemed to have much success in writing down my songs, as my best lines seem to come out while I sing a spontaneous, several-minute-long song ... which is not conducive to my accuracy as a musical scribe. And it would probably require learning to read treble clef.

More later.

Dinsule