Accademie
What in the world am I doing here? Walking home, after a film class which ended at six in the evening, darkness crowding all the corners of the room, I know for certain I am in no way, shape or form meant for the academic world. Our teacher walked in, her face in knots, wearing a small red backpack and wide-laced blue fishnets. I think she must live the most unusual life: whom does she love? And how? As time grows on her character grows more and more endearing to me, but I cannot help seeing her hiding from the world behind the veil of intellectualism. How easy to break things down until they are unrecognizable, what an agile, self-satisfying mode of defense.
I checked out a book on Jeanette Winterson yesterday, a collection of post-modernist essays regarding her style and literary choices. I began reading them, starting with an essay focusing on book I had read of hers (the first book of fiction I have loved since The Shell Collector freshman year, or maybe even Francesca Lia Block in high school). The criticism was gaudy, unnecessary. Completely unimportant. Trivial. Why undertake such a meaningless exercise? Why break apart something you love into something ugly, dissatisfying? To contain it, conquer it? The next question: was it ever really loved to begin with? A defense against loving! Anyhow, it was ugly and boring and, I feel, a total waste of time. Then, of course, for thinking such awful thoughts about someone’s hard work: that sort of essay is precisely what I am supposed to produce following my time at Pomona as a Media Studies major. Why did I choose such a major! It only exists because academics got bored with meaningful things and had to create new things to dissect! No one should be paying attention to the television anyway, yet now it is so invasive that it merits a field of academic study! Another, far more indulgent veil to hide behind!
I have never wanted to drop out of college completely so much as I do now. What is its worth? It is a simple exercise for those still left thinking honestly. Then I think forward to the future: if I cannot stand this and what it implies, meaninglessness, meniality, can I really be happily employed as an adult? I cannot imagine selling 40 hours of my time a week no matter what the pay; how deadening! Standing at a busy street corner in Florence, Italy, in near darkness, the rain illuminated by the headlights of passing cars, wet from the knees down, I can suddenly see no other option: it’s either suicide or poetry. Which is in a sense suicide, too.
I continue to think of my life in two parts, my life then and my life now: is studying abroad so divisive? I see certain things, small things: that was the coastline. My hair was so straight. How did I ever text message on that phone? I don’t think as if these are things to which I will be returning; why does it feel as though a certain kind of death has happened? Why is it impossible to return?
I checked out a book on Jeanette Winterson yesterday, a collection of post-modernist essays regarding her style and literary choices. I began reading them, starting with an essay focusing on book I had read of hers (the first book of fiction I have loved since The Shell Collector freshman year, or maybe even Francesca Lia Block in high school). The criticism was gaudy, unnecessary. Completely unimportant. Trivial. Why undertake such a meaningless exercise? Why break apart something you love into something ugly, dissatisfying? To contain it, conquer it? The next question: was it ever really loved to begin with? A defense against loving! Anyhow, it was ugly and boring and, I feel, a total waste of time. Then, of course, for thinking such awful thoughts about someone’s hard work: that sort of essay is precisely what I am supposed to produce following my time at Pomona as a Media Studies major. Why did I choose such a major! It only exists because academics got bored with meaningful things and had to create new things to dissect! No one should be paying attention to the television anyway, yet now it is so invasive that it merits a field of academic study! Another, far more indulgent veil to hide behind!
I have never wanted to drop out of college completely so much as I do now. What is its worth? It is a simple exercise for those still left thinking honestly. Then I think forward to the future: if I cannot stand this and what it implies, meaninglessness, meniality, can I really be happily employed as an adult? I cannot imagine selling 40 hours of my time a week no matter what the pay; how deadening! Standing at a busy street corner in Florence, Italy, in near darkness, the rain illuminated by the headlights of passing cars, wet from the knees down, I can suddenly see no other option: it’s either suicide or poetry. Which is in a sense suicide, too.
I continue to think of my life in two parts, my life then and my life now: is studying abroad so divisive? I see certain things, small things: that was the coastline. My hair was so straight. How did I ever text message on that phone? I don’t think as if these are things to which I will be returning; why does it feel as though a certain kind of death has happened? Why is it impossible to return?
posted by Ashley at 11:29 PM
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