Doubt and the Human Spirit

I realize that, most of the time, when I write things with the purpose of changing people's minds, that I will fail. Those who like what I have to say will praise me; those who don't will generally ignore me. I'm just not very influential.

But, at the same time, if I didn't want to have an effect, I would just keep my writing bound to a journal. Why put it up online? Why publish? Clearly, I want (need?) to affect people in some way.

If my hopes are too high, I am bound for disappointment. (And they are always too high.) In a way, now that I think about it, having really high hopes as a writer pretty much amounts to narcissism. To hope is to assume that I have something worthwhile to say. Who, exactly, do I think I am?

I think, though, that I have found a realistic, non-conceited, practical goal as a writer -- as a teacher, even. I think a worthy goal is to just try to make people less sure of themselves; to make them doubt their hardened concepts...

It seems to me that doubt, to the human spirit, is as water to the plant.

Too many people are too sure of themselves. Only two results can come of two groups of people who are completely sure of themselves: dangerous clashes or turned backs.

But I'm tired. Whatever the reason for having tried so hard to affect people -- vanity or altruism -- it has made me very tired. I feel like like Jem, after having seen the racism in his town. He says this to, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Scout, I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants to stay inside."

I'd better either shut up about things and go all Boo Radley or keep my expectations low. At the very least, "affects" and "effects" aside, maybe I could just introduce a little beauty, from time to time, in a very, very ugly world. The human spirit can be such a light. Just lift away the shade and it can chase off a deed-dark forest full of demons...

But the shade does need to be lifted. Another worthy goal. I hope. 

Harper Lee's New Book

By now, everyone on the planet has heard that Harper Lee is about to publish her second novel (this July), 55 years after her classic To Kill a Mockingbird. This is great news for her devotees, who read it in middle school, bad news for any kid who had it crammed down his or her throat during middle school and hated it.

I only read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time a few years ago, well after the age of forty. How this happened, I don't know, but I am grateful that it did. In some ways, the book is wasted on people without enough life experience to truly appreciate it. Of course, it is also pretty accessible for kids and it serves as a great tool for teaching literary devices and character, but if one reads it in middle school, one should really go back to it, forget about the nuts and bolts of literary convention and enjoy it for its beauty.

I guess my only point in writing this is to encourage those who haven't read the classic to do so and to encourage those who only remember it from seventh or eighth grade to read it again, especially if they hated it then, in preparation for the new book.

...Mockingbird really is a wonderful work of art.

Atticus

I'm teaching my creative writing class to write fiction, now. This quarter, they start writing a novel. I know it is a novel that most of them will never finish, but the least I can do is to give them a push in the right direction.

As part of my plan, I am showing them two movies. They have read novels, but, for my purposes, the movies I have picked (Dances With Wolves and To Kill A Mockingbird) are effective in having them explore novel-style story structure.

Scout and Atticus

Today, we started talking about To Kill A Mockingbird, which they have all read at some point or another (way too early, as per the ridiculous and ubiquitous assumption that it is a book that kids are intellectually ready for simply because kids are the main characters), and I had an epiphany.

I stopped the lesson. I paused the film after Atticus hugs Scout good night. I told the girls that I wasn't talking to them for the moment. They laughed. I addressed the guys.