Today I'm digging through old notes and folders trying to pull together some thoughts and ideas from items I thought valuable enough to stash away.
Here are a couple quotes about the "essay" form of writing that I just came across in this batch of stuff I'm looking through. They are from a 1996 issue of Civilization, a magazine that used to be published by the Library of Congress but no longer exists.
"The essay is one of the last strongholds of literacy. The nightmare of the late 20th century is that people are losing the ability to pass information through the thinking medium of the mind. More and more we're presenting information in a new and sensational way." Lance Morrow
"In seeking to mine universal truths from personal experience, the essay pushes the mind to dig deeper and deeper, whether the subject is as large as fear or as small as a thumb." Stephen D. Smith