THE LONG-NECK ADAPTATION

 

 “What does it even mean to evolve?” I said aloud to myself, sitting cross-legged in my bed as I nervously picked at my bottom lip.

 

“…. Like, the actual definition?” I jumped at the sound of my roommate’s voice, certain I had been alone. “Come on, Kel, you know what that means. You know, like the giraffes!” Before I could stop her to explain that I understood the biological definition of evolution, Rachel, my roommate and a self-titled animal enthusiast, went on to explain why giraffes have long necks. As the species evolved over many, many years, giraffes struggled to find enough food to sustain their species. These animals competed for the resources that were available to them; those that matched their height which was very similar to so many existing animals. As resources dwindled, only the tallest giraffes with the longest necks were able to survive because they could extend their figures to reach the tallest of trees where a plethora of food awaited the gentle giants. Those who were unable to do so were slowly forced into extinction as they continued to starve to death, fighting for resources with too many other species.

 

While I’d started to tune out my roommate as her rant had effortlessly transitioned to baby rhinos, I considered a question: what did this “survival of the fittest” competition mean? How did this happen? It wasn’t as if one weirdo giraffe stumbled onto the savannah and changed the world and all of the giraffes’ problems were suddenly fixed. Not quite. Many years of evolving turned these once-struggling creatures into a thriving species with an abundance of available sustenance, and many evolutionary traits allowed for this to occur. This species, among all the others that have experienced evolution, floundered. There was an added element in the equation: the pressure to survive.

 

When I think about my progress as a writer since coming to the University of Michigan, it’s difficult for me to pinpoint an outstanding feature that caused such a massive change in my writing. How had I adapted?  In re-reading old papers and essays, it became clearer to me what developments and strides I had made in my composition, and I can attribute most of this growth to a similarity with the giraffe: pressure.

 

Pressure can occur in so many different ways. Although I am under equipped in scientific consideration, I do know that the more pressure there is, the more difficult it is for molecules to move freely. The smaller the container, the more pressure inside. Outside of this more scientific consideration, pressures occur in daily life that affect our decisions. Consider those of time constraint, for example, or working on a deadline. Or perhaps the pressure to challenge one’s self or try something new. The pressures felt by the giraffes struggling to survive pushed the species to adapt to their surroundings. That said, the necessity a species feels to survive is not simply determined by one factor, which in this example would be the ability to reach food. Overall “pressure” is the result of many different kinds of pressure working together: it’s collaborative. For giraffes, there’s also the tension of a constant threat of predation, or environmental pressures that occur within their habitat. The compound effects that these pressures had on the giraffe allowed the species to thrive in its current environment.

 

Similar in practice but not in example, pressure and struggle in my writing, likewise, have allowed me to adapt to the environment that pushes me to achieve my best writing. There are many different forces that have caused my evolution into the writer I have become, including the pressure of competition against my peers (or predators, to relate back to the giraffe), the stress of a deadline, and the pressure of a new environment and new limits. These pressures together, in differing amounts, have created the writer that I am today.

 

Much like the giraffe who feels pressured and panicked due to a lack of resource, I have felt the same struggle with a lack of time. Writing on a deadline has produced some of my most mechanically terrible and simultaneously my most honest material. The subject matter that appears when one feels an end fast-approaching is different than the material produced when one has the time to thoroughly think things through. Almost every paper or essay I have written in this fast-paced, type first, think later manner has been one whose subject I do not care much for. Since I don’t enjoy spending time thinking about the matter at hand, it makes sense why I would also not like writing about it. That said, I have surprised myself in this hurried fashion with how easily thoughts can come to me when I don’t over-think them.

 

 Last semester, during my senior year, I enrolled in a Women’s Studies course entitled “Women’s Health.” The final paper was to construct a research paper of our own choosing, and write 6-8 pages on the topic. It was an average, run-of-the-mill analysis, and given the amount of creative writing I’d been allowed to do in the previous year, I was unenthusiastic to begin. So naturally, as a senior does, I didn’t begin the paper until very late the night before. The pressure was extremely high, the excitement was low, and I was dreading it. Until, that is, I actually began writing the paper. I decided to research sexual assault on college campuses, and the effects that such occurrences have on college women, specifically.

 

Right away, in my first body paragraph, I found myself feeling enthralled and impassioned by the topic:

“For example, a woman choosing to walk home alone at night is judged for putting

herself in a somewhat dangerous position, because a potential assailant may see that she

is vulnerable and take advantage of her. This speaks so much to how we, as a society, see

sexual assault. Instead of teaching human beings not to sexually assault someone, we

teach young females that they cannot walk alone, whether this be from the library after a

long night of studying or after getting a few drinks with some friends. Regardless of the

situation, telling a woman that walking alone is unsafe takes away the power she, and any

person, should have, and makes a person feel powerless in their own decisions. An

individual can make that choice to walk alone, but if something were to happen, they

would undoubtedly take the fall for not taking the ‘correct precautions,’ which devalues

an individual’s life choices.”

While I was writing this, I don’t recall doing too much thinking, and I definitely wasn’t over-thinking. The words seemed to flow through my veins into my fingertips, finding refuge on the keyboard. I was heated, suddenly aware that I had strayed from my original plan of action in exchange for this more frivolous and honest approach. The added pressure of the deadline, combined with the passion I felt for the topic, led to a new way of writing for me.

 

On other occasions, the pressure came from a different place, which was entering an unfamiliar environment. While the giraffe’s neck is often the most notable evolved trait of the animal, another notable feature are their extremely long legs. Giraffes are known to only have one direct predator, which is the lion. The lengthy limbs that the giraffe is so well-known for allow the creature to run as swiftly and with as much haste as possible away from their killers.  At a university like Michigan, the environment can become overwhelming and competitive. The same competitiveness that caused a struggle for the giraffes as they searched for food was similar to the competitiveness that I felt, working to succeed amongst young scholars, determined to “beat” me at a game we were all playing. This happened immediately in my freshman year English class, but also notably impacted my writing in upper level courses.

 

In order to best adapt to this new competitive atmosphere, I learned to thrive by enrolling in classes that permitted writing with more topic options. During the fall of my junior year, I took Communications 439, which was the “Digital Disruption of Journalism.” For my final project, I was challenged to write about whatever topic I desired, but the focus ultimately had to be on how digitization had offered some kind of change. I chose to compose a piece on YouTube and the changes that it produced on the dance community at large. I would say that this was the first time I was allowed to write about dance at all in an academic setting. While I was able to talk about my experience dancing later in my Minor in Writing gateway course, in this class I explored dance on a more journalistic basis and ultimately used this platform to do my remediated and repurposed assignments for the gateway course. I started to adapt to the competitive pressure of the University of Michigan and began to find my writing niche. Finding this environment also allowed me to develop as a writer on my own, as I was avoiding the competition and “predation” so to speak of my fellow classmates, who had all decided on different themes to discuss.

 

Another pressure that pushed me to evolve as a writer is that of containment. Mentioned above, scientifically, containment is pressure. The smaller the container, the more pressure. Direct that pressure, however, and you’ve got: energy. Imagine you have a balloon that is completely filled. Now imagine you’ve twisted that balloon into a balloon animal. You have changed the amount of area that same amount of matter was taking up, and the pressure in that area has increased. Compress those molecules too much, and the balloon will surely burst. What exists is a fine line between too much pressure and just the right amount to have the desired outcome. Suppose the giraffe’s neck had grown taller than necessary, or if its legs were any longer or shorter. It may not have been capable of outrunning its predators, instead stumbling through the savannah, submitting itself to inevitable demise.

 

Sometimes, the pressure to adapt may have negative consequences, much like a balloon animal exploding instead of thriving in its altered state. First-hand, I experienced this negative pressure and over-exertion of energy in my creative writing class sophomore year. When I was young, I had the confidence to write any story I wanted, when I wanted, and show the finished product to whoever I wanted. I was convinced I’d be the next great: the next J.K. Rowling or Judy Blume. I told tales of books who could talk, animals escaping the pound, and princesses slaying dragons. In my educational career, this creativity was stifled in exchange for a much more “appropriate” format. Suddenly, having been years since asked to write in this exuberant manner, it was thrown at me once again.

 

“Write me a poem,” my professor said on the first day of class.

 

I panicked. The last time I wrote a poem it had surely been inspired by Dr. Seuss, with made-up words and rhyming phrases. How could she expect me, on day one, to write prose in the way that the incredible poets we had just finished reading constructed their poems? Every step of the way we were asked to bring in our material for peer review.

 

“It waits patiently for darkness to settle

and silence to fall; embarking on a journey

that only few consider.

A trek on tiny claws,

a wall-hugging scamper.”

 

This excerpt came from a poem about the mouse that had made a home in our kitchen. Most of my other works were about cheese. This is not a success story. I still cannot write a poem. I was not the star student I had been in writing classes in high school. In terms of the balloon analogy, I exploded. All of the pressure and energy had pushed its way out and onto the page in cliche and unimaginative ways, but all the while I did my best to adapt. Essentially, what I learned was that poetry was not a writing environment in which I would thrive, but I could manage to survive if I could put all of my energy into it.

 

Under so many circumstances, human beings are put in situations and forced to adapt, encouraged to thrive. A combination of factors will play a part in our fate. No one factor is more important than the next. We can’t all make it in every environment. Just as the giraffe in the savannah evolved to evade pressure and subsist, some falling victim to the pressure, I experienced a similar adaptation in my writing. I grew with being pressured by deadlines, by the competition for success, and my failures. In every condition some will flourish and some will not; we cannot always adapt. But we can do our best to live.