free-writing exercise

So here I am trying to teach my new ENG 14 class how to free write and the value of it and why it is important to try it, and not only to try it but to do it right! To write write write as much as you can without stopping to think. Yes, to be chained to our pens, and so not very "free", but just to write as fast as you think in a stream of conciousness type of way, which is pretty revealing of oneself. It takes a lot to let go enough to write without thinking to shed all pride and intellectualism if that is what one intends to portray to everyone. Shed the exterior and let the interior shine on out. I began writing to put down on page that I have about ten minutes to kill before I need to worry about lack of sleep and now here I am just writing blabber, writing about writing! Is it really that improtant? Well, yes, I'd like to think so. Because I enjoy writing and teaching writing and it is in fact one part of my profession, the part that allows my mind to find release in thinking about different things in different ways constantly. Because when my brain isn't charged or put to the test, it isn't active, and if it isn't active, it isn't inspired. and really, what is a brain if it is not inspired? Inspiration grows form so many places and it is one thing that I constantly puzzle myself with: how does one find inspiration? How can I inspire my students the way that I have always dreamed when first deciding to become a teacher? When I was sitting behind that desk as a student and wondering how in the hell a teacher could be so dumb or naive or insensitive or uncaring, when I was judging teachers, or evaluating them, or, in a more positive tone, becoming INSPIRED by them, how did I figure was the best way to stimulate a student's mind? Is it inherent or in one's nature to find inspiration easily? I mean c'mon now, I know writer's block as well as teh back of my hand. But do I know how to get over that terrifying feeling of staring at a blank page, or a white computer screen? How do you put words on page satisfactorily when you just don't know what to say? The perfect ideas aren't even coming close to your brain; worse yet, NO ideas are coming to your brain. Blankness.
Am I done free-writing? This is taking more time than I thought it would. Did I run out of things to say because I was just ranting about nonsense that doesn't really mean much to anybody? Am I becoming paranoid for any particular psychological reason that I should get checked out? Who am I asking all these questions to? Will I go back over this piece of writing and answer each question and then find the answers to all that I have ever wanted? If I were to ask one question to have it be answered by one higher power, I wonder what it would be. Probably something like the best solution to finding world peace. What a crazy world we live in, and it would be nice if something like peace existed everywhere. What would be the bad part of that? Could there be any negative consquence to world peace?

DOne