“What are you going to do with that?” Final reflections of a lit major.

In week one, I gave my thoughts to the "literature vs. popular fiction" debate. I essentially boiled it down to: literature is meant to bring insight in various ways, popular fiction is meant to appeal to immediate pleasures and sell very well. In truth, I still generally feel that way. You've allowed me to be very philosophical in some of my journals and discussions and I've been very grateful for that. Although I'm sure a lot of people think I do it on purpose, I promise my pretentiousness is entirely compulsive! I tell myself to answer A but end up answering B, C, D, E, and about 40 other questions no one asked. I'd like to finish being a little philosophical* again, focusing mostly on the personal purpose of literature (as opposed to, say, the structure and prose). Needless to say, literature, and my relationship with it, has been on my mind lately.

The place where I live has had a mass shooting, which left two children and a college graduate dead. The day before I complained about not going to the festival this year, and someone commented on how expensive it is ("you gotta' pay for tickets, then pay inside for everything you want…") and we all agreed not to go. I believe very strongly (probably due to all that evidence) that gun control is desperately needed to end this violence and always have believed that. When a mass shooting would happen, I resented when—if the conversation wasn't derailed by people claiming the liberals planned the attack as a way to take away their weapons—victims would be paraded around like temporary talking points. I wanted to scream that they aren't just pictures on your newsfeed and they're not just notes in your conversation! I wanted—and still do want—others to fully visualize them and the courses of their lives: from their wailing births to their gruesome deaths. They existed and were real, just like you and me. Some of them didn't even make it to double digits.

I've read the studies that talk about how mass shootings are increasing. I've read about how most Americans consider it a top fear—in fact, when polled, children are likely to claim their own biggest school-related fears are being shot while in class. I knew that and I would say it often to people who opposed gun control. I'd make sarcastic comments to my family, "A march for equality, you say? Love to go but we might all get shot by someone in a MAGA hat with an automatic assault rifle with armor-piercing, heat-seeking bullets that he normally uses when he goes deer hunting."

And my family would snicker but we'd all go on. And now it has really happened and I found—find—myself ungrounded.

It reminded me of something that had happened earlier in my life when I was living in Chicago. A man committed suicide on the tracks of the train I was riding home from work and I was absolutely shaken. I was younger and I had never been so close (although I saw nothing) to such a violent thing. In truth, I became a bit obsessed with it and it completely dominated my thoughts. I tried to talk about it with people—clinically, not emotionally, although the I was desperately trying to articulate what I was feeling—and, quite frankly, most people just weren't interested. Most just said things like, "Yeah, it's sad" or perhaps a more flippant "People kill themselves all the time" remarks. Jimmy Lee (that was his name, I learned) wasn't someone they knew and they didn't know anyone who had actually killed themselves—and if they did, they didn't spend too much time trying to find out why. They figured that tragedy couldn't be explained and it would only bring you down, it seemed to me, and so I stopped talking about Jimmy Lee.

At the time, my mom was re-reading 1984. She said she'd forgotten it after so long and handed it off to me when she was done and I gave it another read through. Of course, as I'm sure you'd suspect, I was reminded of Orwell's incredible talent and insight (although I'd argue Huxley was a bit more on-point with modern society with Brave New World). I came across a quote about his time in the Indian Imperial police and he saw a convicted man hung.

It changed Orwell and he spoke about something that struck him very deeply. He called it the man's "essence" or something to that nature and the fact that the man's essence had been there one moment and then was gone another was incomprehensible to Orwell. That he had existed and now he did not. I cried I was so grateful; it was exactly what I had been feeling. I read his essay "A Hanging" and I admired how he had condensed things that had felt so powerful—to both of us—into something so compact. A short essay which would share those powerful feelings with others, if they'd only read it.

When I think about what's happened now, I remember Orwell's work. I remember what it meant to share that with Orwell and the comfort it brought it, and how it made me walk away with a new view of the world. A man was hung. Orwell felt and he shared. I felt and I listened and then I learned. He gave me that experience and every time I go into the world, I remember what he shared with me and I share it with others in a million small ways. I don't know what will bring me comfort now but I know I can find answers in literature.

That's what literature brings to the world table: empathy.

Literature is about reliving the human experience again, and again. It's about reflection and consideration of both the words you're reading—which can sometimes have significance in the smallest details—and how they've affected you. Honestly, despite the fact that I'm preaching about empathy, studying literature is a very solitary task and it requires a bit of self-absorption to have an impact. When someone reads literature, they have to ask themselves, "What does this matter to me?" That's a valid question and it needs to be followed up by others like, "Where do I see this in relation to myself and to my life? Does this give me any insight into how I make my decisions and run my life? Does it contradict me or support me in my views, values, and principles?"

Unfortunately, the hard part is then taking those answers and looking at them honestly. Sometimes that means you end up learning things you don't like about yourself. Then comes the hardest part of all—ideally, you then actually make the steps to alter that once you've discovered it.

Popular fiction just asks you to ask yourself what feels good and tells you to go with it. And damn the consequences—just make sure you pay the bill.

I had breakfast with a friend and an acquaintance a few weeks ago. The acquaintance asked me what I was studying and I told him English literature. He pause and then, with a twist on his lips, said, "What are you going to do with that?"

Be a better person.

* That's my codeword for "rambling on and on"