It is a striking visualization of how I also experience my favorite music. When something so beautiful rhythmically, melodically and harmonically, or something so complex, or so much happens at the same time that you don’t know what to do with yourself, that you can’t believe your luck, that everything overflows. It is literally a sublime feeling.
That sublime feeling is something I have long wanted to convey in my writing. Jonathan, the Seychelles giant tortoise that I talk about in my very first piece for EM in mid-2020, the poor animal, was the first to serve as a literary vehicle for this.
Anyone who wades through the word clay that I have created there, knows that Jonathan, at one hundred and ninety-one years old the world’s oldest turtle, symbolizes the ruthless time, which grinds on and on. An excess of tropes and the broad scope did the piece no favors. Writing is deleting, after all.
The editors of Erasmus Magazine must have scratched their heads when I submitted it. Still, they posted it. And yet I later received a column, which was noted. It sublime should be developed in my columns, was my idea, I just had to find the right words for it.
That sublime feeling, I missed it during my bachelor’s degree in Medicine. I expected more philosophy of life, more discourse, more valuable interaction, more passionate teachers. The vast majority of medicine is actually one overload to pedantic lectures and lists of diseases, medications, side effects. Dry and cool.
That overwhelming Four last Songsfeeling, I couldn’t get any of my columns to develop, and over time I realized that text as a medium has a different mechanism than music. And so perhaps also a different goal. It is more tranquil, more reflective, and also more personal.
Despite the secrecy of my bachelor’s degree, my internships were filled with valuable interactions. I now realize that I have written a corpus of texts that is not only a reference, but that shows my growth and development as a doctor and writer. This is how I became deeply attached to my column.
When I realize this, I overflow with appreciation. For EM, which has given me a platform, allowed me to experiment and supported me. For the patients who showed themselves vulnerable and let me get close. And for all the people who supported me and sent kind messages about my writing. It feels blessed, it feels sublime.
So, thank you very much.
Now that I’m a doctor, I’m finishing up my writing for EM. But I will keep writing. A bit like how Jonathan keeps grinding on piles of grass in a public garden somewhere on St. Helena.
Since Dino Gačević won an EM writing competition as a medical student in 2020, he has been writing stories and columns about his internships. All his columns can be found here. Last year, his column Chemokuur, about his conversation with a patient just before a serious treatment, finished second in an election of the best columns in higher education media. The jury called his piece ‘a bit abrasive but nuanced’. “A very painful situation has been sensitively described with well-chosen words.”
2023-12-07 12:16:38
#Sublime #Erasmus #Magazine
