Literature

"universality"

"meaning to the human experience"

I think one question that I wrestle with the most is the point or purpose to literature. This by extension becomes a question of the importance of my own choice to pursue the study of literature as a career.

It's interesting because it seems that those in the field have no problem addressing this question with the implicit "of course this is important" through the very act of publishing papers that are published or through the pouring of hours into the research of various seemingly unimportant topics.

My very language betrays me. "Unimportant."

This is where I worry that what I am doing may not contain enough meaning for me to dive into it. I'm trying to reconcile what I enjoy doing with finding something that has meaning.

Just because you enjoy it doesn't mean it has meaning. I enjoy watching anime, playing Tetris Battle, and cooking. Of the three, two have no meaning - they will not enhance my life in any way, they will not make me a better person, influence my being, or add to my character.

Okay, well I think anime does a little of that because media has its influences but playing Tetris Battle only succeeds in teaching me how to order my life when they are organized by shapes that are a variation of a placement of 4 squares.

"Enjoying something unproductive is useless."

This is the philosophy I've been taught and something that I'm fighting against because unfortunately reading and literature have both fallen into the "useless" category. This is in part familial - my dad's mantra has always been "activity with productivity" because in order to survive, one must be productive. Both reading and writing are not productive in the sense that they do not create money in the immediate sense (there is no career in this - though ironically, my dad as always encouraged the whole family to read). This line of thinking is also societal because of the push towards math and science. The general attitude (from where, I wonder?) is that there is no money to be made in humanities and that they have no value.

And yet.

There's always the "and yet."

When I am doing my readings, I disappear into a different world that I am exploring and time too disappears.

As I explore this field, I see the importance of literature and its effects. The philosophies (literary theories, if you will), filter down from the academics to the students. Students who care to learn and participate in class pick up on such ways of thinking, and then the ideas start to spread. And example is the hyperreal, though rarely called by its name, that is manifested in our lives; we see it, comment on it, and continue with it or fight against it.

Literature can change and has changed the world but perhaps its effects have been too subtle for us to give it any credit.