The Dawn Of My Self Discovery Olvens Louissaint   © Copyright 2024 by Olvens Louissaint

Photo courtesy of the author.

After having taken, under the instigation of my desire to explore both myself and the world, the whim of devoting myself to study, I spent almost the whole day conducting research. As an eclectic reader, I read every book that came my way, starting by exploring the words in my dictionary. Sometimes I read books just so I could discover new words. This was how I spent my days in search of my true self through my research almost every day.

Following the end of my classical school, I had been forced to stay at home almost every day and this during some years. My parents were unable to help me pursue my higher studies soon after the end of my high school. As I have often been all alone at home, I started reading the books that I had or borrowed from both friends and relatives. I also searched for new words in my dictionary in order to enrich my vocabulary thus, becoming fluent in French, since my friends always wanted to talk in French with me. French is not the language that is common to everyone here, and most students, even while pursuing their higher studies at university or vocational school, can not speak it very well even for one hour or less. That has been my case, since only a few people can speak it well. As they made fun of me due to my misspellings, that motivated me to work hard in order to improve my skills in French and challenging them to do the same. After a lot of effort and self-training, I managed to know the language better than those friends who pretended to be more fluent than me.

Through the research of new words in my dictionary while reading grammar, I managed to memorize lots of words that belong to several different subjects. That helped me to get into the phraseology of many disciplines of study, and I began to exchange ideas about them with other people. As I did not just search for words in my dictionary but also read many other books, some of which were about philosophic teachings or compiled subjects related to many fields as far as science is concerned, this allowed me to begin with developing my skills, deepening my knowledge, fostering my understanding about many things and becoming more aware of my talents and capabilities. 

One day, I saw a book titled Literary Techniques at a cousin’s home. I took it and started reading it. As I noticed that it was worth reading in a deeper way, I borrowed it from my cousin for a week. It is mainly thanks to that book I managed to discover and enhance my writing skills and pave a way to my career as a self-taught writer. As I kept reading many other books that are mainly linked to this subject and the entire writing methodology including logic, I managed to develop my aptitude for critical thinking. Since then I started improving my writing skills and developing my pieces through trial and error and now, I am finally able to write as a professional.

I am living in a country filled with problems related to social, political, environmental, economical matters. Because of this, human rights issues arise everyday. I wrote in French even though there is no support for literature here. Besides, no one encouraged  me, as far as my dreams to succeed as a writer is concerned. Then such a sad sociopolitical context obliged me to use the skills and knowledge I gained from my research to intervene through debates in a critical way mainly on social media.

I later used the same method through which I managed to develop my French writing skills in order to teach myself English, by reading French-to-English grammar books, searching for words in my French-to-English or English-to-French dictionary, and listening to English music while reading the lyrics on my phone screen. This helped me with my English pronunciation, before I downloaded some apps which furthered my skills when it comes to the pronunciation of English. Being able to write in English would foster my interaction with the international cultural community. I began to write in English in 2016 while starting to connect and interact with other English speaking writers worldwide and thus I managed to build my network beyond my national borders step by step.

Through my journey as a foreign writer who uses English to write alongside French, I found encouragement, received awards and honors and sometimes I got other kinds of support in order to keep thriving in my writing art in line with my vision and commitment for the well-being of humanity, and that allows me to further the development of my skills and career and straighten the road of my practice so as to help make the world a fairer and more equitable place. So, like I foresaw it, a great opportunity has been offered to me through my connection with many other cultural organizations and practitioners who share both the same interests and dreams as me. There are people who never stopped encouraging and supporting me in one way or another, who are now by my side to accompany me on my artistic journey. Since I have a long way to go, they continue to help me foster my dreams to make a very positive and significant impact on the world on behalf of my engagement, after managing to open up a pathway toward the horizon of my vision while balancing things so as to fulfill my mission, by mainly sharing my voice through my writings.

It wasn’t easy for me to achieve my goals in this way. Some people, including my parents, tried to discourage me so that I would give up. They were worried about me, thinking that I could lose my mind on this journey. But I decided not to listen to them and kept following the path of my dreams step by step, after reading a book where it is said that “our brain is like the muscle of our arms, it is fortified through training and becomes weak when we neither train nor use it.” Then I built up this thought: if an athlete can lift up heavy things every day and the muscle of his arms become stronger instead of being broken, then the fact that I am reading or conducting research every day won’t make me lose my mind, but will rather help me enhance, highlight and fortify my capabilities so as to discover my true self. This conclusion served me as motivation to keep up my research and trainings despite the fact that there are people that try to discourage me. My decision to keep following my research, training, and the activities that are related to them is what has allowed me to find more balance in life. This has helped me to discover my true self and become more aware of my professional goals. It’s also helped me to discover my interests, build up my vision and to find out the path where I can fulfill my mission.

Anyway, I became a fool through this process, but the fact is that I am a fool who is aware of my madness. That’s why standing for the well-being of humanity is enough to make me very dangerous, since I managed to become more curious and observant. Hence that process served me as the dawn of my self-discovery and also offers me the opportunity to explore the horizon of my need regarding my self-realization.

Growing keen on Literature and endowed with a deep sense of curiosity and observation which allows him to explore his environment, and draw his inspiration to create his work, Olvens Louissaint is a bilingual self taught writer, Translator and Human rights defender. He was born and raised in La Gonave island.  Dedicated and emerging writer who treats both personal and universal subjects through his writings and, who is used to address complex issues strategically and confidently through his work, Olvens is an eclectic reader who writes poetry, critical essay and short story.