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erosanova-blog · 8 years ago

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The Struggle is Real

By Axel Anderson

(Readers note: this was originally submitted Spring 2015 to a 20th Century Fiction class at Colorado State University, I just wanted to reblog it and share it with the world. I apologize some of the formatting didn't transfer over, and I sincerely hope all the references are correct. The original assignment called for a minimum of 8 pages, but the professor refused my 52 page paper, so I condensed it to 22 pages. Enjoy!)

You wake up late, in a half-inebriated state; eyes crusty at the corners and the knowledge that a term paper is due in a few hours that you have yet to begin. It’s raining outside, and you’re dreading the walk to the bus station. A half an hour away to the university, and your eyelids are drooping into their sockets. You show up at the computer terminal, shoes wet and socks sopping. You’re wet to the core and have no way of drying off except the hand dryer in the bathroom which does a shoddy job of even drying your hands. You perch one leg on the counter, trying to dry your soggy clothing, but then slip and fall. You’re lying on your back in a pool of urine and lavatory floor water; to think all this started with a desire to further your education. You walk out of the bathroom looking (and smelling) like the victim of a sewage plant hurricane. You saunter over to the desk to work on your term paper and suddenly your mind goes blank. It’s only until fifteen minutes from your deadline does it pick back up, and out of nowhere your hands have a mind of their own, dancing and flickering lambently on the keyboard. No pauses, no breaks, a speed of light approach that leaves even you in utter amazement. The following day the professor announces that it’s the best paper he’s ever read, and you silently recite the teenage colloquialism, “the struggle is real.”

There’s a kernel of justice in the idiom of a child getting a lollipop at the doctor’s office after an “oh-so-agonizing” vaccination. Over the centuries, scholars have come to the conclusion that suffering is often the root of happiness. Pain, both emotional and physical is a transitory state between childhood and adolescence; between ignorance and epistemology. Throughout the course of the class "20th Century Fiction," taught by Thomas Conway, I have both read of anguish and experienced it firsthand in my personal life- it's easy to tie together the strings of similarity; it is also easy to relate to something that correlates with personal experience. With age comes wisdom, imparted by the indelible sickle of a fresh wound, which, once healed, imparts a valuable lesson. We rarely scald the tips of our fingers twice, out of curiosity, on a hot burner. Louis Erdrich's Love Medicine, Don Delillo's White Noise, and J.M Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, all include instances where suffering was essential for maturation, but in the interest of time and space (and since it is frowned upon to submit a forty-six page paper when the requirement is four to six) the primary focus is with Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Don Delillo’s White Noise and Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine. Often the sweetest apples are those which have weathered the harshest storms, and throughout this lengthy term paper, I intend to prove that not only is suffering necessary for the stimulation of plot in a narrative, but a driving force for societal maturation.

In the short story Araby by James Joyce, the protagonist is a young boy, naive in the ways of love and unaware of the intricacies of the world outside his little village. Developing a crush or obsession with an object of desire is often unhealthy, the tendency is to become a martyr of urgency. From under the umbrage of innocence, a man is born; for when he walks into the rain his back becomes wet, his bones chill, and his desire for the looming face of the familiar replaces his desire for the obscure. But what is wet will dry, what is cold will warm, and the need to unveil the unfamiliar will be replaced an accomplished effort.

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (Araby, Joyce, pg. 5) In the end the boy discovers all the taboo and aberrant desires are not what they seem-that the path to adulthood is paved in suffering. Though his eyes may burn, he will soon become hardened and accustomed to the sensation, until one day his need for it will overwhelm the possibility of lament.

Sometimes we saunter the earth as broken men(or women), having fallen off the cliff of a crush and tossed into a sea of sharks with the blood of a lamb tossed upon us; and what goes up will undoubtedly fall to the earth at some point-such is the nature of gravity. Like a scar, ink injected into the dermis is a constant reminder of the prominent stories in the tome of someone determined to decorate their natural temple; it is a chronological depiction only capable of reminiscence by their own minds, to any outsider these imprinted Rorschach tests may appear to be the wallpaper of the human canvas, like a mantelpiece decoration- but to the individual, they are rife with meaning. When Gabriel learns of Gretta's long lost love in James Joyce's The Dead, he falls into deep introspection.

The "vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again, for he felt that she would tell him of herself. Her hand was warm and moist: it did not respond to his touch, but he continued to caress it just as he had caressed her first letter to him that spring morning."(The Dead, Joyce pg. 21)

which leads Gabriel into the next stage of emotional transition,

"So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul." (The Dead, Joyce, pg. 21)

But through the five stages of grief Gabriel is finally able to digest his wife's admission, and is a better person because of it, when,

"He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live. Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love." (The Dead, Joyce, pg. 21)

It is clear that Gabriel is forced into acceptance through adversity, and he emerges from the watery depths of paranoia and an unfounded sense of deception onto the shores of an epiphany. Death is a struggle in itself, and more often than not positivity exudes from a closed casket, but sometimes a negative spin corrupts the bowling ball before the strike: “Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. (Kundera,pg.3)

Betrayal is a common occurrence in many people's lives, but in this case Gabriel feels betrayed from lack of elucidation; which brings about an interesting point: is betrayal withholding information because of awareness of the consequences of revealing such information? When people feel betrayed, they suffer. But if they never knew about this betrayal, would they ever suffer, hence would they ever grow? Jeffrey Nealon and Susan Searls Giroux state, "Like texts, expressions or clues or golf courses don't simply speak for themselves; they don't simply contain a meaning. Rather, we must always interpret them......... Everything is in need of interpretation, nothing is merely self-evident."(pg. 22)

Would you feel betrayed if this happened in your life? Or is there bliss in ignorance, is there peace in the unknown? If the end of the world was tomorrow, would you rather be aware of it or completely oblivious of the impending oblivion?

Reminiscence is both fortuitous and tortuous at the same time. Murray claims, “I don’t trust anybody’s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It’s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence.”(Delillo, pg. 246)

So we should learn from our suffering, but we shouldn’t grasp it tightly to the point of suffocation. Even if the river is flooding, let the sticks and brambles flow past instead of focusing on how scathed and bloody the skin becomes.

In Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, when King and Lynette destroy the pies carefully constructed for the family, Albertine repairs the damage as best as she can claiming, "Once they smash there is no way to make them right." (pg. 42)

In this abstract quote about pastries, she seems to also be referring to the marriage between King and Lynette. Once scars are laid, there is no way to forget, they are a constant reminder of a harsh memory- the priceless vases which contain our fragile lives sometimes crash to the floor, and we are left to pick up the shattered pieces in introspective silence. But often after the loudest crash comes the softest silence; sometimes the suffering is so great the possibility for growth is non-existent. Even though King and Lynette proceed to make up and make love under the foggy windshield of their car, the readers are left wondering about the integrity of their relationship-since they are only given a few brief glances into the near future throughout the text, the summation of this relationship is obscure. Lulu Nanapush gave up her life of relative comfort to travel somewhere everyone warned her about- to live with Moses on his wild island full of feral felines and simple needs. She found happiness in the forbidden, even when she became pregnant in an uncivilized place, with the child of a man who she was loosely related to; she says, "I knew that this baby, still tied to my heart, could drag me under. And yet, each morning, light rose in the trembling mica, and I turned away, to the darkness in his arms." (Erdrich, pg. 83)

Even though this man represented everything she shouldn't be pursuing, she couldn't help but give in to the ultimate chase: the desire for love. Sometimes despite the biggest warnings we seek the best rewards-better to aim high and fall low than aim low and hit your feet. There is a prevailing benevolence and a dispiriting malevolence in any given situation, but as Nealon and Giroux state, “You never know because the future remains open; meaning never stops or rests simply in one interpretation." (pg. 28)

When Beverly and Lulu give in to their passion following his brother's death (Lulu’s husband), their union is anything but sacred, but it propagates from passion. Sometimes suffering leads wandering strangers down the wrong paths, slipping into a forbidden creek of lust. Although it is not always positive growth, it does provide positive introspection: "He was more of a man than he'd ever been. The grief of loss for the beloved made their tiny flames of life so sad and precious it hardly mattered who was what." (Erdrich, pg. 116)

Sometimes we are forced to feel emotion because we are products of our environments, other times we choose to ignore emotion; we become numb. Only until we find ourselves in another epiphany can we pull out of this downward spiral. Nector Kashpaw shares a tryst with Lulu as well, another forbidden chance for personal growth. Secrecy is often the greatest thrill, and their love labors behind closed doors and in cars sitting on the horizon with melting packages of butter. Nector craves the forbidden, hence Nector enjoys suffering; it is not easy to live a double life. He finally comes to his senses and decides to terminate their rendezvous, but is immediately filled with regret, saying, "And that is what the suffering and burning set in me with fierceness beyond myself. No sooner had I given her up than I wanted Lulu back." (Erdrich, pg. 135)

Some things in life will always change, too often we wade into the river and expect it to be the same. Heraclitus proposed that you can’t step in the same river twice- there is truth in this, the world continues to revolve around and only when you step out of your comfort level, only when you burst forth from your bubble will the world acknowledge your presence, otherwise you are just another boulder in the stream. There are certain consequences that always haunt a person, but in those consequences a seed often sprouts. We infer from our mistakes what actions will guide us through the next set of difficulties with the minimal amount of collateral damage to our selves. But oftentimes, we neglect to take a lesson from our mistakes, we look at hardship as having a detrimental effect rather than a positive one.

Now and again the trauma in our lives causes us to grow sour and weaken, rather than toughening up like ice-hardened steel. Sometimes the struggle becomes too great or too incredibly destructive; sometimes the struggle is a tornado in a trailer park-those trinkets and cardboard yard art will never be able to be replaced to their former glory (I’m stereotyping and being facetious, for this I apologize). Obsession and paranoia have very few positive effects, if any. Oftentimes we allow ourselves to hurt by exposing our lives to the outside world, very similar to people refusing to use hand sanitizer to strengthen their immune systems or getting flu shots to prevent the inevitable sickness of the season. Marie Kashpaw (formerly Lazarre), “ate dust for one reason: to introduce herself to death. She now was inhabited by the blowing and the nameless.”(Erdrich, pg. 143).

When she finds out her husband is cheating on her, the struggle suddenly becomes real, but there is bound to be rebels in a rebellion, there is almost always opposition to an opposition. She claims, “I would not care if Lulu Lamartine ended up the wife of the chairman of the Chippewa Tribe. I’d still be Marie. Marie. Star of the Sea! I’d shine when they stripped off the wax!”(Erdrich, pg. 161)

For Nector, the sugar in his life (Lulu, the voice of temptation) often needs balanced with the salt of his life (Marie, the voice of reason and obligation). He is torn between the two, and even though he develops diabetes later on (Lulu always fed him hard candy even when he wasn’t supposed to eat it, while Marie forced vegetables on him) from an excess amount of sugar, he still salts his wounded pancreas and keeps the shaker by his side. With Lulu, there is a lightness in his being; with Marie, a heaviness, but he is bound to his shaker, though he continues to sneak sugar when he can. His struggle is real, but it is detrimental for all the parties involved. However, sometimes life is best lived at the tip of a risk that in the shelf of the pantry, because (following the attempted homicide of the man providing Babette with placebos and infidelity by Jack), “Is it better to commit evil and attempt to balance it with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life” (Delillo, pg. 299). Jeffrey Nealon and Susan Searls Giroux continue with, "No matter which side you favor in such a discussion, it's much too simple to say that one is inherently good while the other is inherently bad. It's the consequences that are good or bad, not the signifiers." (pg. 27) Jack was subject to positive growth following this experience, so the gray line separating good from bad is rather obscure.

People crave turmoil like a desert craves the rain; there is a reason why so many episodes of Gossip Girl exist and why the ratings on dramatic reality television series are so high. What makes for a good story is the possibility of the protagonist going through a series of trials and errors with penultimate strife prior to the denouement. Jeffrey Nealon and Susan Giroux claim, “After all, there’s no point in being “unique” unless people know it! Perhaps the easiest way to state this point is to say that we are social animals, and one of the things we want from each other is recognition.”(pg. 43)

On occasion we expose ourselves to unnecessary hardships for the sake of personal growth. I am currently pursuing a major that makes me struggle, not only because I enjoy a challenge, but I approach it with an air of Machiavellianism. I often choose girls I know will hurt me eventually, because it was in my human nature to want what I can’t have and there is no sport in hunting an injured fox. I would rather strive to be the best I can be and hope that a woman will someday accept me for who I am than giving in to a moderate desire. In White Noise, the man known as Murray, for example, chooses to live in “a rooming house. I’m totally captivated and intrigued. It’s a gorgeous old crumbling house near the insane asylum. Seven or eight boarders, more or less a permanent one for me. A woman who harbors a terrible secret. A man with a haunted look. A man who never comes out of his room. A woman who stands by the letter box for hours, waiting for something that never seems to arrive. A man with no past. There is a smell about the place of unhappy lives in the movies that I really respond to.”(Delillo, pg. 10)

Murray surrounds himself with turmoil because he enjoys watching it; he is content watching the mayhem around him because it allows him to reflect on the important things in life, rather than focusing on the white noise that envelopes. There is an almost unhealthy obsession with death and dying in this novel as well; death being the end of all suffering and the summation of a man in a requiem, “Dying is a quality of the air. It’s everywhere and nowhere. Men shout as they die, to be noticed, remembered for a second or two. To die in an apartment instead of a house can depress the soul, I would imagine, for several lives to come” (Delillo, pg. 38).

When we think of drama in cinema, particularly war movies, it is often a man’s last escaping words that tie the whole story together or provide plot or motive for it to continue. Why are we, as a society, so humbled by this concept? Even if it doesn’t cross the mind of a normal person, eventually the obsession with the thought of dying will present itself. When that ugly fact is finally faced headstrong with acceptance, the weight lifts from our shoulders like Atlas losing his globe. In Love Medicine, Lulu begins thinking of her regrets and the notion that carrying the burden of suffrage wasn’t worth crying over, but was worth holding on to: “There were so many things I never cried for. I knew if I started now I would have to waste all the rest of my last years. Besides that, there weren’t tears in me. I was incapable.” (Erdrich, pg. 292)

In the modern world we tend to categorize our memories using technology. The problem in doing so is we are too easily enabled to go back and relive our strife. It is too easy to remember the good times, but also too easy to block out the bad, as reflected in White Noise: “I made virtues from her flaws because it was my nature to shelter loved ones from the truth. Something lurked inside the truth, she said” (pg. 8). And in Love Medicine, a similar theme surfaces for Lulu when she is pondering the regrettable actions of fooling around once more with Nector Kashpaw in the retirement home: “And yet here again I was making my one big mistake in life over again for the sake of illusion.”(Erdrich, pg. 290)

In any given instance, people as consumers are subject to white noise. Unbearable advertisements and subliminal voices invading our subconscious, and we are not necessarily stronger for it. We tune everything out, consciously ignoring advertisements but subconsciously integrating them into our being. We are the product of our technologically advanced environments, getting weaker and weaker by the day because of our augmented reliance. Too often do we rid ourselves of anxiety or fear of the struggle by the use of modern medicine; with the ingestion of placebos and prescriptions we hope will cure the distress created when life happens. Jack claims, “And I was not a believer in easy solutions, something to swallow that would rid my soul of an ancient fear”(Delillo, pg. 201). Sometimes the side effects of these drugs are worse than the problem for which they’re prescribed. Suffering through the pain is often more beneficial than artificially overcoming problems.

In spite of the fact that I have been hurt time and time again, I still have the desire to walk the plank of fortune; I can’t let the mistakes of the past allow me to throw a blind eye to the possibilities the future can bring. Even though it seems hopeless in my dissertation, the hope comes from scribing it- there is resolve in venting, and this was one of the few ducts through which I exhaled. Jack says to Babette, “Sometimes I think our love is inexperience. The question of dying becomes a wise reminder. It cures us of our innocence of the future. Simple things are doomed, or is that a superstition?” (Delillo, pg. 15)

In the end, resilience is key. The ability to stand back up after being beaten to the ground is admirable and necessary. A pampered person is able to grasp any object of my desire on a whim or with a neatly written check from an overflowing bank account, and life often seems pointless. Sometimes things obtained through hard work define you as a person, and define the objects that you crave as having some insurmountable worth. Lipsha struggled through a lifetime of surrogacy, searching for his father, searching for the meaning of life, and searching for resolution following June’s death. In the end, he drove on, wheels spinning, over the river that binds society: “It’s a dark, twisting river. The bed is deep and narrow. I thought of June. The water played in whorls beneath me or flexed over sunken cars. How weakly I remembered her. If it made any sense at all, she was part of the great loneliness being carried up the driving current. I tell you, there was good in what she did for me, I know now. … The thought of June grabbed my heart so, but I was lucky she turned me over to Grandma Kashpaw. … I’d heard that this river was the last of an ancient ocean, miles deep, that once covered the Dakotas and solved all our problems. It is easy to still imagine us beneath them vast unreasonable waves, but the truth is we live on dry land. I got inside. The morning was clear. A good road led on. So there was nothing to do but cross the water and bring her home.” (Erdrich, pg. 333)

People watching, or sociology on a macro level, is entertaining. Sociology is the reason we read books; novels provide a glimpse into another life without having to leave the comfort of your chair. Celebrities often disguise themselves in public, for fear of being noticed or treated differently. Being a public figure disallows you from people watching, you belong to the upper echelon of society and may have a hard time candidly observing a couple at the supermarket or thrift store. A lot of celebrities hire personal assistants and personal shoppers to eliminate their need to interact with common folk; they’re completely isolated to lives in the spotlight of decadence. Is their struggle a healthy one? Sure we could all live without being sneezed on at the grocery store, or having beer spilled on us at a rock and roll concert, but is being on the stage capable of producing any personal growth? A celebrity’s struggle for privacy is rarely beneficial. When Jack talks to the chancellor about furthering his career, he suggests, “If I could become more ugly, he seemed to be suggesting, it would help my career enormously. ……I am the false character that follows the name around.”(Delillo, pg. 17) Celebrities struggle because they are defined by their actions, and, unlike the actions of the common folk, they are in the spotlight. This suffering, this struggle, is sometimes unbearably negative. Though they may be full of fortune, their lives lie in the limelight.

When we are hurt, we occasionally gain disillusionment in our surroundings; we begin to question everything. We question both what brings us pleasure and what provides pain, and begin doing a cost-benefit analysis. So corrupted by the notion of being hurt once again, oftentimes, “What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation,” (Delillo, pg. 31) and we willingly exclude ourselves from activities that hold a potential for harm. The tendency to attack previously accepted benevolent anecdotes or nuances becomes apparent, and the world surrounding us seems to loom overhead before dropping; we pick it apart like a hungry hyena devouring a week-old kill.

The concept of growth through suffering is often negated; sometimes the harshest storms topple the boughs of even the most sturdy apple trees. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, “Her mother took her out of school at the age of fifteen, and Tereza went to work as a waitress, handing over all her earnings. She was willing to do anything to gain her mother’s love” (Kundera, pg. 44). This suffering lead nowhere, except leaving Tereza with a feeling like she needed to escape her wretched hell. So when six fortuities happened and Tomas appeared, she ran to him. He was all she had, even though he was a complete stranger.

“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.”(Kundera, pg. 48) Suffering sometimes leaves it up to coincidence to rid ourselves of anguish. “Necessity knows no magical formulae-they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi’s shoulders” (Kundera, pg49).

Another example of this benevolence gone awry lies in the ugly truth that Tereza’s real father died because her mother left him for another man and he was so depressed he made appalling statements to the communist police. “The most manly of men became the most downcast. … The most downcast of men died after a short spell behind bars, and Tereza and her mother went to live in a small town near the mountains with her mother’s swindler” (Kundera, pg. 43). So suffering in this instance didn’t nullify or create a callous, it only exacerbated the pain. Tereza is no stranger to this notion, however, she even suffers in her early childhood, “Even at the age of eight she would fall asleep by pressing one hand into the other and making believe she was holding the hand of a man whom she loved, the man of her life. So if in her sleep she pressed Tomas’s hand with such tenacity, we can understand why: she had been training for it since childhood.”(Kundera, pg. 55)

Perhaps the most appalling quote to come from this book, (in my personal opinion) which reflects a lack of growth as a product of suffering, “To assuage Tereza’s sufferings, he married her”(Kundera, pg. 23). Too often I observe these legally binding trysts that seem to be a desperate attempt to fix something that is incapable of repair; a bond fabricated for all the wrong reasons. People settle into the foundations of crumbling mortar and creaking floorboards because they are afraid; afraid to strive for something greater, afraid of rejection. Then they suffer because of their poor decisions-hence, they suffer because they have not suffered enough. But the people in this type of situation often reach the point where they cannot live without one another, even if the yin doesn’t converge with the yang perfectly. When Tereza leaves Tomas and he is overwhelmed with happiness, but shortly thereafter he realizes he can’t live without her, even though hiding his infidelities is quite sufferable, “For seven years he had lived bound to her, his every step subject to scrutiny. She might as well have chained iron balls to his ankles. Suddenly his step was much lighter. He soared”(Kundera, pg. 30).

However, “…necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inexplicably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value”(Kundera, pg. 33).

Tomas is stranded between the lightness of being and the contentment therein, and the necessity of the everyday struggle. He is also a creature of consideration, he can see the damage he’s causing in Tereza’s life, he can see the agony that he is imparting, “In languages that derive from Latin, “compassion” means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, “pity” (French, pitié; Italian, pietà; etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer” (Kundera, pg. 20). Tomas is awash in a tidal pool of guilt and pity the moment he discovers his unbearable lightness, “The realization that he was utterly powerless was like the blow of a sledgehammer, yet it was curiously calming as well. No one was forcing him into a decision” (Kundera, pg. 29).

Our bodies leak when we are in pain-whether it be blood or tears (or maybe if we have to urinate extremely badly), what’s inside is bursting forth for the world to see. Sometimes we cannot hide it, sometimes we don’t want to. Sometimes we are so caught up in the search for perfection that we discard everything but perfection. Disney movies established what true love should be like, they personified white knights and evil witches and provided us with an unhealthy distrust of apples. Sometimes over-analysis is debilitating, sometimes the best approach is ignorance; the unthinkable is only torturous if it manifests into a thought. Babette claims, ““My life is either/or. Either I chew regular gum or I chew sugarless gum. Either I chew gum or I smoke. Either I smoke or I gain weight. Either I gain weight or I run up the stadium steps.” “Sounds like a boring life.” “I hope it lasts forever,” she said”(Delillo, pg. 53). The majority of little choices we make in life most likely won’t matter because in the end they are often deemed inconsequential. Life is one small struggle at a time, the easiest way to get through them is stand up straight and hold on to the handlebars. After all, “You have to ask yourself whether anything you do in this life would have beauty and meaning without the knowledge you carry of a final line, a border or limit.” (Delillo, pg. 217)

Without suffering and the change that lies therein, what do we have on our deathbed? Would we grow without suffering? Heinrich grows when the family has to abandon their house and run to a shelter, and Jack’s connection with him grows as well. When Jack observes him speaking with a crowd about the disaster he decides not to interrupt to, “Let him bloom, if that’s what he’s doing, in the name of mischance, dread and random disaster” (Delillo, pg. 128).

Babette’s father, Vernon, is the epitome of how suffering forces growth. We are often required to compensate when our lives begin to break down, we are often forced to deal with problems as they approach; rather than wallowing in misery we are forced to think positively: ““A limp is a natural thing at a certain age. Forget the cough. It’s healthy to cough. You move the stuff around. The stuff can’t harm you as long as it doesn’t settle in one spot and stay there for years. So the cough’s all right. So is the insomnia. The insomnia’s all right. What do I gain by sleeping? You reach an age when every minute of sleep is one less minute to do useful things. To cough or limp. Never mind the women. The women are all right. We rent a cassette and have some sex. It pumps blood to the heart. Forget the cigarettes. I like to tell myself I’m getting away with something. Let the Mormon’s quit smoking. They’ll die of something just as bad. The money’s no problem. I’m all set incomewise. Zero pensions, zero savings, zero stocks and bonds. So you don’t have to worry about that. It’s all taken care of. Never mind the teeth. The teeth are all right. The looser they are, the more you can wobble them with your tongue. It gives the tongue something to do. Don’t worry about the shakes. Everybody gets the shakes now and then. It’s only the left hand anyway. The way to enjoy shakes is pretend its somebody else’s hand. Never mind the sudden and unexpected weight loss. There’s no point eating what you can’t see. Don’t worry about the eyes. The eyes can’t get any worse than they are now. Forget the mind completely. The mind goes before the body. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. So don’t worry about the mind. The mind is all right. Worry about the car. The steering’s all awry. The brakes were recalled three times. The hood shoots up on pothole terrain”” (Delillo, pg. 243-244).

Vernon brushes the suffrage off his shoulders, weakened with age. My grandma once told me not to hold grudges that life was too short to worry about injustices done to your honor. Vernon is blissfully aware of his baggage, but doesn’t let him affect his upturned attitude; he is more worried about his car falling apart than his body and mind. Even dressing differently makes people’s perception of you change, with designer clothing you are suddenly the member of the upper class, as least, in appearance.

Religion spreads like an epidemic, but at the end of the day if a person spends their entire life trying to do what’s right and true by their fellow man and there is no ethereal resting place, was their suffering all for naught? Clearly faith skews our perspective of the world, and allows for another layer of personal suffering to exist; a suffering that doesn’t necessarily end in a substantial reward. What if the religion you’ve been following since childhood is suddenly denounced as a cult? All of those layers of suffering become worthless, your whole life may spiral into depression and remorse. Marie Lazarre experiences growth through the pain of religion, a foreshadowing at the beginning of her chapter says, "So when I went there, I knew the dark fish must rise. Plumes of radiance had soldered on me. No reservation girl had ever prayed so hard." (Erdrich, pg. 43) Though she was viciously tortured at the hands of Sister Leopolda, she ran away from the fountain of knowledge with a canteen brimming with experience.

The struggle for love is real, often too real; so real people take their own lives when they think they’ve lost it-paralleling Romeo and Juliet. Murray says to Jack, “It’s bad enough to fear the unknown. Faced with the unknown, we can pretend it isn’t there. Exact dates would drive many to suicide, if only to beat the system”(White Noise, pg. 272). Most hope to obtain love on a familial level and personal level, though some may never find it. Some settle for the norm, that greenhorn level of happiness. However, social Darwinism states that only the strong survive in society; if we don’t suffer, we won’t survive, and we won’t find the ultimate love we are searching for. Arguably, those who settle with the “it’ll do” attitude, those who settle for what’s safe and easily obtained, have not suffered enough. We suffer through shitty relationships, going through a lot of crap with the hopes of changing someone. Some remain unchanged and in these cases suffering proves to be fruitless. A plane’s approach to the flight deck of love takes many different routes, and is bound to engage some turbulence. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines love as:

Love (noun) 1a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2): attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates>

b: an assurance of affection <give her my love>

2: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>

3a: the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love>

b (1): a beloved person: darling —often used as a term of endearment (2) British —used as an informal term of address

4a: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1): the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2): brotherly concern for others

b: a person's adoration of God

5: a god or personification of love

6: an amorous episode: love affair

7: the sexual embrace: copulation

8: a score of zero (as in tennis)

9: capitalized Christian Science: god. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love)

Some people see love as living, “…with nothing between us and the stars. We would have made any concession, had we only known what, to go on living here. This was paradise on earth” (Coetzee, pg. 154).

There are many different ways to express it, many of which involve religion, which has been previously defined in this dissertation as something some people believe is worth struggling for. In The Incredible Lightness of Being, love is a suffrage which doesn’t necessarily reflect personal growth, “For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes” (pg. 31). In all of the novels we read throughout this course, the characters have struggled with the concept of love-either struggling to find it (Araby, Love Medicine, The River Between, The Incredible Lightness of Being), struggling to define it (The Dead, Love Medicine, The River Between, The Incredible Lightness of Being) or struggling to let it go (The Dead, Love Medicine, The River In Between, The Incredible Lightness of Being). I (obviously) struggle with this as well as made evident in That Which Remains Unspoken-The Things I Cannot Tell Her. As time passes we often fall into the in the heart of a growth chamber. At first all of my writing had a certain depressing hopeless quality to it. Suddenly a hopeful spark found its way into the kindling of my life, but be sure to watch for the spark that initiated the fire in which I’m currently bathing.

“A twirl of smoke whisks off her hair, caught on an updraft and twisting towards the starlight beaming down on us. The air coming off the lake is chilly, it impales us even under several blankets. We talk for hours, caught up in each other. Often when I look at her nothing else seems to be around-I'm a stranded pilot on a desert island staring into the brown of her eyes, watching her dimples perk up with every joke and fade with every lamentable hindsight. I tell her everything and she reciprocates, her mind edacious and her eyes fixed. They shine with the gleam of a wild child, that little spark of fire by gasoline, and I am engulfed.

When I was younger I used to dream of a white picket fence with a creek running nearby, two or three mischievous children scampering around the yard chasing a fuzzy little dog. The wind rustling through the lilacs, tulips and lilies in the garden, and no neighbors within several miles. Chickens clucking, perhaps a cat or two eager to play with anything that caught their fancy. A brown haired woman waiting on the porch swing with a cold drink and a blissful smile, one that remained in place from day to day, never fading or growing sour with age. I dreamt of walking the children down to the bus stop on those icy winter days, huddling together under a woolen blanket until they went away to further their education. I envisioned the welcoming hug and kiss when I came home, a hot pot of coffee percolating in the kitchen and homemade biscuits still cooling on top of the oven.

We all have our version of the perfect person, one that makes our days seem like minutes and makes the world collapse when we look at them, weak in the knees and drunk off their kiss-not a bad drunk, that slight inebriation where you feel warm inside and everything seems just right. These are the things which I cannot tell her. I cannot tell her that she fits my every criteria, that she is the one I have been searching for my entire life. I can't tell her that despite her warnings, telling me not to fall for her, that I already have. That I'm closer to love than I've ever been in my life. I can't tell her because I don't want her to know, I don't want her to run, but I don't want to be forced to give up the greatest present I've ever been given-one that trumps all the Christmases and Birthdays put together. I can't tell her because she won't see it the same way I do, or I'm not sure if she will. I've been in a similar situation before, I've given everything I've had, walking the plank into the mouth of hungry white sharks- only to feel that pang of rejection, that "I'm sorry but this is too soon" beginning to a fresh knife wound into my soft underbelly. I've seen what love does to people, I've watched reality television (which, ironically, is a horrible representation of real life) and sappy lifetime movies- I know what I shouldn't do because of what society defines as too soon. At the turn of the century it was uncommon to be unmarried after age twenty, and common to start at family at fifteen or sixteen. As society changes, so do the concepts of "normal" relationship behavior. Society gives us notions like the "two-three day rule for calling/texting after you get someone's number," and I never really cared for that. I suppose it's because I have an urge to rebel against the norms of society, I have an urge to be aberrant and abnormal-what many would label as "unique." If I want to call someone, I call them. If I want to jump, I jump, if they reciprocate it was meant to be, if not it wasn't.

She is fresh out of a relationship with the world at the tip of her fingers, why would she choose me? I'm just a silly farm boy with delusions of grandeur-not grandeur in the sense of fancy dinners of Rolls Royce's- delusions of a happy family sitting around the fireplace being read to as they sip hot chocolate on those cold winter days- archaic delusions. Does this really happen anymore? Or am I stuck in the past, am I too old fashioned for my own good? A silly farm boy displaced into city life with the hopes of being able to provide for that wife and kids (and immediate family) with the right kind of education.

She has travelled all over the world and I have yet to leave the United States. She talks of foreign countries and sunrises in Africa; I have seen beauty all over my home state, but nothing as diverse as what she has perceived. She makes me want to be a better person, for her, but not because she demands it, because I want to be one for her. With every narrative she serenades me with new concepts, she changes the composition of my beliefs without even knowing.

She looks into the night sky, my little selenophile. She doesn't realize how beautiful she is in this light, the flickering of them flames lambent on her eyes. She never complains, even when her feet go numb from the cold. She is always smiling, and slowly we creep towards each other like climbing vines. I am always pushing my boundaries, like a river swollen in the height of monsoon season. But it isn't sexual, at least, that's not what matters. I am content in being lost in her raven eyes, listening to her every word and digesting it; trying to keep those thoughts hell bent on telling her how wonderful I think she is, telling her how close I am to falling for her completely. But I don't want to, I try to resist like a child wanting to play with that sticky community toy at the local Pizza dive, that his parents tell him to resist because it's not safe, but he just can't seem to manage; I can't. I'm stuck.

I don't want to become that person I so often embody. My last relationship purged me of jealousy... Only to suffer because of it. Once the bond of trust is broken, it is nearly impossible to get back. She tells me one night, "Once you crumple a sheet of paper, it is very hard to flatten back out to perfection.” And she's right. She's always right. Even when she's telling me not to fall for her she's right. Even when she tells me that she has a fire in her eyes and I should stay away or be burned... she's right.

But I am a pyromaniac, and a rebel. Tell me to stay away from the flame and watch me chase it. I can't stand the man I start to become. I can't take the jealousy... and that's why I should resist. I should call it off before it goes too far and I'm too attached, too drawn in. I should run away.

But I simply can't. When everything you've ever wanted wanders in front of you, a product of fate and a few simple sticky notes placed at the right times, in the right places... it's almost like fate tapped on my shoulder and then hit me in the face with a brick; an indelible ebb and flow of events I can't seem to shake.

I don't want to toss and turn anymore, not like last time. I don't want my stomach to boil up and overflow with grief, I don't want to worry about where she's at or who she's with. It is so hard to cage a fire; and I don't want to hold that wild animal down I see bounding behind her brown ovals.

So it comes down to this... either give up on everything and walk away from what could be my soulmate, my true love, the Juliet to my Romeo, the yin to my yang, the inhalation to my exhalation, the north to my south, the other hand grasping another, my wolf, my penguin, my gibbon, my swan, my French angelfish, my albatross, my queen termite, my prairie vole, my Schistosoma Mansoni worm, my bald eagle, my turtledove (in case you were wondering what these animals have in common, may I suggest a little research? :)), the thorn on my rose and the kindling to the fire that both of us burn inside.

If a winning lottery ticket was placed in front of you, would you sit there and think of the consequences of sudden wealth? The fact that most lottery winners go crazy, bankrupt themselves, and get used by friends and family until the cash flow runs dry... would this echo in your mind? Would you take it without thinking, anxious to cash it in a quit your job to retire in the lap of luxury? Or would you give it all up, knowing it probably isn't worth the grief that a lump sum like that brings? It's an interesting analogy, but you already know the answer. How many people would refuse a multi-million dollar lifestyle; how many people could refuse a scenario like mine, suddenly plopped into complete and utter contentment, but not being able to elaborate your feelings with the person you desire? Pop culture (and Shakespeare) tell us that soulmates exist, that there is one person out there for everyone which is a perfect fit. However... I can't help but wonder will this romance be like a Lady Gaga song, a Shakespearean tragedy or a Disney fairytale.

Its torture, its torment, but isn't everything? Love is a series of mistakes that lead to true love-but not everybody finds true love. Some people simply settle because they don't want to be alone, they make sacrifices and remove the criteria they held in such high regard when they were growing up because they get tired of searching. Then years later their relationships collapse when they think they've found that person somewhere else, that they could be much happier there than here, and they throw it all away on a whim. I melt like candlewax when I'm around her, I'm dizzy and oblivious. I could walk into a wall staring at her, I could burn in a building set alight listening to her stories, enraptured by that twinkle in her eyes. I listen to her tales of hardships as a child, I patiently await anything else she has to tell me- any anecdotes or theories she has glowing and reverberating in that brilliant mind of hers. I can't stop thinking about her, and even when I do it is only out of necessity, to breathe, to study, or to fall asleep.

She is my sunrise and my moonlight, and I feel naked without her.

That's what scares me the most.

Losing her would be tragic. And I don't even have her yet, perhaps I never will. How's that for conflict?

So these are the things she doesn't need to know, that which remains unspoken but I can't keep from my mind, can't keep from ripping through my soul. That I'm falling for her, that I'm dreaming it's her sitting on that piney porch swing in the warm summer breeze, with the fire in her eyes slightly dampened with age and happiness, but still burning bright as a magnesium flare. Whenever she's around I want to kiss her and hold her, it's been like this from day one, and I have begun to believe that the cliché of love at first sight might actually exist. I am torn between the happiness of having her, and lamenting over ever having to let her go. But society dictates that I cannot say these things, I shouldn't fall so easily in love, I shouldn't chase that which cannot be caught... but I am thrilled with the chase, I am content with following the carrot barely past my nose like a stubborn donkey, because it gives me direction, it gives me purpose and hope. It has turned me from a hopeless romantic to a hopeful one, it has made me realize how I may actually fall into one of those sappy love stories I see on television and movies, where everything inexplicably falls into place with a smidgeon of magic, and a pinch of luck. Maybe I'm crazy, but aren't we all? Maybe I'm reading between the lines and seeing what I want to see; maybe she doesn't feel the same way at all and I'm a delusional fool following an angel around like a little puppy dog.

I feel like I've known her my entire life, and I have never been more comfortable with anyone. When she tells me her ex cheated on her, I am blown away. That would be like someone taking spray-paint to Mona Lisa, or carving their initials on Michelangelo's David. What sort of an ignorant person would even dare? The grass is always greener on the other side, but you're a fool for crossing the tracks because the train comes often and without warning, and leaves you with nothing, in a desolate place slowly forgetting that coy grin on her freckled face. Maybe the whole notion of staying together for a lifetime is dead to the world, like chivalry or Elvis Presley. Maybe my grandparents, whom I admire more than anyone in the world, maybe their marriage of 65+ years and counting is a dying breed. Maybe people today can so easily file a divorce and move on to what they assume will be greener pastures than make any attempt at working out their problems. I once asked my grandmother how she did it, how she stayed with the same person for so many years. She replied, "I just take it day by day," and I had to giggle a little. That such a strong relationship could be held together by such a temporal bond. That's the problem with taking things day by day... one moment you're lofting in the clouds high above everything else, the next you fall to the earth. Leaving so much in the air generates a lot of potential energy, the possibility for eminent disaster is always looming overhead, like a rain cloud when you aren't a pluviophile, and you neglected to bring your umbrella.

All I know is as much as I hate to admit it... I'm falling in love with her, after only a short time. These are the things I cannot tell her, because I do not want her to run away. She's like a shy yet soft wild animal you can almost coax in, but may bound away at any time, galloping into the wind, brandishing her auburn hair in the waning sunlight. Maybe she's perfect... maybe perfection is subjective and I'm the subject. She says she trusts me more than she should, she says she thinks she can tell me anything... and the feeling is mutual, but I can't tell her this. Some things have to remain unsaid. Maybe on the inside I'm trying to talk myself down from that ledge before I fall, maybe I'm stuck between jumping off and hoping she'll be there to catch me and walking away. But for now, all I can do is hope, and pray-and I'm hardly the religious type- I question everything. I have never caved so fast, I have never jumped off that cliff so easily without a parachute. She sets precedents and standards. When I look at other girls now I feel like someone who has just eaten a large amount of candy, sipping sweet tea and thinking to myself, "wow this isn't sweet at all." I have no desire and little attraction, they are ash in my mouth. She is everything to me, and I want nothing else. As much as I cannot tell her these things, I hope she finds this one day and realizes how fond of her I was from the start, if we last. Wish me luck. I'm taking it day by day, I'm taking that chance and hoping for the best. She turned me from a hopeless romantic to a hopeful one, and I love it, I love every minute I'm with her. I awaken with thoughts of her in the morning and fall asleep remembering everything she's said to me throughout the day; or the way she looked in a certain light where I had to stop and ask myself, "Is this real? Is this happening? How did I get so lucky to have this wonderful woman come into my life?"

*****

The day by day theory I proposed earlier was absolutely correct. Funny how perceptions can change in the blink of an eye, how I can be one person four hours earlier, hopeful and constantly planning new adventures, and then on the brink of an emotional breakdown in the present moment. I should be studying for my Calculus exam, because it is of the utmost importance, but how can I when I have so much on my mind? Maybe it was the way I said things, the way I explained myself or the simple fact that I am not "the one" for her, or she needs time. They all need time. I need time away to soak my wounds in saline solution.

You cannot cage a wild dove, or at least you shouldn't; it simply isn't right. So I sit here typing, trying not to let a tear leave my eye, trying my best to keep them from rolling down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone for fear they may see how watery I've become. No, I don't have something in my eye, I've simply lost something I cannot find again. The essential problem with being a hopeful romantic is you leave yourself open for your dreams to be dashed, and now that all the women are like ash in my mouth and my taste buds have gone flaccid from too much premature pancreas-destruction, nothing else matters. I roam the world with a melancholy look on my face, or hide everything with the facade of a "genuine" smile. My friends won't understand why I passed up such a golden opportunity, but I do. I cannot peer into the depths of heaven and then remain outside, I cannot take the wild bird from its environment and surround it with bars-its beauty won't be the same and its magnificence will wither and erode. She knows where I am, apparently I am that transparent-apparently I make a bad habit of telling someone everything about myself and giving in too easily to distractions. I should put up another brick wall again, but it's better now than when I'm in the trenches and have nowhere to form a barrier, no stony guise or rocky outcropping to hide behind. So I will take this rejection, although it isn't her rejection necessarily, but mine rather. If the bird chooses to return to me, I will gladly bask in its beauty, but I will not hold it down.

So I'm doing what I should've done in the first place, what not many people would do; I'm resisting the temptation of the winning lottery ticket and walking past it, aware of the possible destruction that lies within. I could be rich but hollow, always trying to fill the void, or I could fall back to the barracks and lick my wounds clean. I must maintain focus, I mustn't let myself be caught in the web. I'm caught in the glimmering of the waning sunlight, the orange and blue hues that we once shared are contemptible when covered with clouds, an artic wind blowing in from the north, lifting skirts and invading the nooks and crannies on the light spring jackets of people passing by outside. They don't know who I am, what I'm going through. They cannot see the shine gathering on the brink, they cannot hear the tremor in my voice as I'm walking away trying to avoid contact.

What do I do now? Cover my tongue with ash? Indulge in a bland, flavorless sweet tea? I write. That's all I have. Maybe one day, if the bird flies back to me, it will fix its gaze over my shoulder and know where I've been and what I've gone through to reach this conclusion. The feelings subside into the keyboard. I am growing stony again, hopeless, just like before that fateful day with those silly little notes. My hands try to send the message to her, conveying the fact that we should end it, but I can't seem to press the button. Maybe I'll just avoid it completely, avoid my patterns and sit different places in the library from now on. Ignore any messages I get, or change my number. If she wants me, she can find me. "If you love someone let them go, if they return they were always yours, if they don't they never were." Sage words of advice. The sunlight is fading and so am I. Soon it will be lost to the world, the world will forget today and the sun will rise on a new one. Gooseflesh runs down my spine as the violin piercing my ears finds a familiar feeling.

It takes a lot for me to give up on this, who knows if I'll actually go through with it. She is my kryptonite, and I was trying to hold her close, blissfully unaware of the poison creeping under my skin. I wanted to hold on for as long as I can but it burned... it burns like my eyes are burning still trying to cap the emotional well billowing up from underneath. Maybe the fire in her eyes was too hot for me to handle, maybe she was right. She's always right. Maybe sometimes you have to let go of what you think is true love to make way for true suffering, the real motivator in life. Think of a man in love-he lets himself go. He begins to neglect his appearance because he knows, or thinks, that his love will always remain the same. Now imagine the down-trodden man, the one who finds his best friend fucking his girlfriend. He spends all his free time at the gym, he spends his nights eating as much random sugar as possible trying to forget, trying to find that one morsel that will outdo or undo the pain that she caused, so he can rub in her face how much better he is now, how much happier he is without her, and how much she missed out on by letting him go.

Imagine a rich man, resting his uncalloused feet every day by his personal pool, margarita in hand. What is his motivation? Maids to clean his house and butlers to bring him fresh drinks, all with the ring of a bell. His wife wears the brightest pearls and diamonds, with a plastic smile and an enhanced chest, designer clothes because Gucci knows best. Imagine a child growing up in the poorest neighborhood in town, watching the rich man drive by every day in his brand new Ferrari (his drive to the office inexplicably led him through the ghetto, it's possible he's a member of a major drug cartel); hoping, dreaming, turning his eyes to the sky and praying. He struggles through life, selling drugs on the side, committing small crimes, then major ones-working his way to the top of the ladder. Until one day he is poolside with the rich man, whose skin sags from alcoholism and drug use, muscles atrophied from lack of exercise. The poor boy takes position as right-hand man, and is soon seduced by the rich man's wife and her saline implants, allowed to take over the entire empire because the rich man let himself go. This is a modern-day Scarface.

This is but one small tangent I have become stuck on. Now that my hopes are dashed, the little notes are nowhere to be found and the potential deluge has subsided through my fingertips, I should be that motivated farm boy once again. But I am a coward. Afraid to start an altercation, but afraid too that there won't be one at all-that she will simply acquiesce to my decision, knowing how much we have in common and how sweet it tastes when we kiss. Maybe she didn't enjoy me listening intently to her every word... maybe I should just be an asshole like all the other pretentious pricks around here, socializing with loose sorority girls and calling themselves "real men" in their suede boat shoes and khaki pants, product smeared in their full head of hair like they just climbed through the grease trap at a local fast food place. Yeah we get it dude, sweet Mohawk; that fad NEVER grows old. All the inconsiderates sneezing and coughing into their hands, not even washing them after they use the bathroom.

I gave all my secrets away, all but two, which nobody knows about-and at this rate, nobody will. I will write them in my will and have them plastered on my headstone-how could I be embarrassed if I'm dead? It's completely logical, and I think people should adopt this practice. Then walking through the graveyard may at least bring a smile to someone's face- to bastardize the final resting places with Jersey Shore antics. Perhaps I will have my dreams plastered on there as well, in case they never come true. I never give up hope, I just sacrifice standards, and I give up my distorted views of perfection. "Not today, maybe never." What would you put on your gravestone?

I'm still hiding behind my cowardice, maybe I'm hoping she will come swooping out of left field with a kiss even the shortstop couldn't predict- or something like that... shit... I don't watch sports you tell me if it's accurate.

The sun is gone, and the fluorescents are humming in the parking lot. I've lost an hour of my life into the keyboard with no resolve, except I feel slightly better. My belly is still yellow, and will most likely remain that way for the next few days. I cannot respond... I cannot force that lottery ticket out of my hands, maybe it was never in them to begin with. Maybe it was fate that I resist.

I guess time will tell.

I made the mistake, or rather, I took the opportunity to read this to her, my Cinderella, that freckle faced girl with the bright smile who waltzed into my life that fateful spring day. I didn’t run like I planned on, I didn’t send that fateful text message ending everything because I didn’t have the willpower, I couldn’t discard that winning lottery ticket. I read it to her because she found something that scared her-affection-and I knew she was running anyways so I might as well elucidate my true feelings. She isn’t ready, and into this convivial keyboard I can announce that I don’t think I am either. It seems every novel we read has an interesting take on love.

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.” (Kundera, pg. 5)

Oftentimes people get caught up in fate. They desire something so greatly they force it upon themselves like it was “meant to be,” or “written in the stars,” because of a few simple fortuities that make an event seem to be a product of fate. Similarities lie where the mind desires them. When peering into a Magic Eye puzzle, some see what their mind allows them to, while others falsify their vision. The concept of “Es muss sein!” is both beautiful and sickening, “We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the “Es muss sein!” to our own great love” (Kundera, pg. 35). This is a truly remarkable notion, whether the reader chooses to believe it is up to their interpretation.

Perhaps my life isn’t all that bad, perhaps it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. As an American, I was been born with a placenta of complaint-screaming and crying immediately after leaving the warmth and comfort of the womb. Yes, I have suffered, some of which was unnecessary for my personal growth; but there are people on this earth that writhe in more unnecessary hardship in one day than I have experienced in a lifetime. In this way I resemble the magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians, “I have lived through an eventful year, yet understand no more of it than a babe in arms. Of all the people of this town I am the least one fitted to write a memorial. Better the blacksmith with his cries of rage and woe” (Coetzee, pg. 155).

The magistrate takes the girl back to her people, and by doing so he sacrifices power and is tortured and humiliated, so he can obtain personal growth- to feel better about himself as a person, and to prove to himself that he isn’t selfish. I often do the same, living for others while torturing myself. But because of this, to a lot of people, I have gained a general reputation of being unselfish-whether or not this is a merit is in the eye of the beholder.

They say literary analysis shouldn’t contain a lot of personal pronouns, but the desire to tell the world about my struggle is too great. The struggle is that last kiss before watching her walk away. The struggle is wanting to hold her hand when walking on the square or in the library lobby and not being able to. The struggle is biting your lip so it won’t quiver in front of her when you know she’s running away from you. The struggle is reading all of your stories aloud and without revision while she watches you with those chocolate eyes. The struggle is making her laugh, knowing that it will be the last time you hear that laugh for a while. The struggle is walking away… the two paths diverging in the yellow wood that Robert Frost portrayed. “If I resolved to ride out the bad times, keeping my own counsel, I might cease to feel like a man who, in the grip of an undertow, gives up the fight, stops swimming, and turns his face towards the open sea and death. But it is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference and annihilation. I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering”(Coetzee, pg. 21).

The struggle is kissing her as the rain floods off the roof, failing your exams and having your boss yell at you for being tired at work-because you were with her, because you sacrificed every minute you could just to hold her for another sixty seconds. The struggle is not caring as the rest of the world falls apart as long as she’s in your arms… the struggle comes when she’s gone. “But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.” (Kundera, pg. 75)

The struggle changes from day to day, and so do the stories. Sometimes the best labor is that which remains behind closed doors, in the deepest annals and the darkest corners of the cerebellum. Sometimes this toil, when made public, can ruin or incite a real connection or a sudden change. In White Noise, Jack said, “But when I say I believe in complete disclosure I don’t mean it cheaply, as anecdotal sport or shallow revelation. It is a form of self-renewal and a gesture of custodial trust. Love helps us develop an identity secure enough to allow itself to be placed in another’s care and protection. Babette and I have turned our lives for each other’s thoughtful regard, turned them in the moonlight in our pale hands, spoken deep into the night about fathers and mothers, childhood, friendships, awakenings, old loves, old fears(except fear of death). No detail must be left out, not even a dog with ticks or a neighbor’s boy who ate an insect on a dare. The smell of pantries, the sense of empty afternoons, the feel of things as they rained across our skin, things as facts and passions, the feel of pain, loss, disappointment, breathless delight. In these night recitations we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is a space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.” (Delillo, pg. 30)

From the moment we’re born, the struggle becomes real. No longer are we able to rely on the nutrition our mother masticates and digests, we are forced out under the spotlight with a violent push of placenta and glory-the glory of breathing air for the first time, the glory of the sun upon our skin, the glory of life. We all struggle through growing up, through the river of politics and religion, through the currents of opposition from the natural world, and through the concept of love. In the absence of suffering sits a man on a plush padded throne, growing fat and weary with everyday life. He does not have to move, he has wheels for that; he does not have to remember, he has technology for that; he does not have to clean, he has maids for that; he does not have to adjust his diet, he has nutrition specialists for that; he does not have to love, where money reigns, desire drains. Often people focus on eliminating the strife and struggle from their lives, neglecting to acknowledge that it is this very concept that constructed who they are and who they will become as time goes by. Knowledge, desire, hope, and a forward drive walk hand in hand with suffering. Never try to remove this blessing in disguise, the world depends on it, as Murray tells Jack, “I’m saying you can’t let down the living by slipping into self-pity and despair. People will depend on you to be brave. What people look for in a dying friend is a stubborn kind of gravel-faced nobility, a refusal to give in, with moments of indomitable humor. You’re growing in prestige even as we speak. You’re creating a hazy light about your own body. I have to like it.”(Delillo, pg. 271)

And we are often left with the feeling of helplessness, like in Waiting for the Barbarians, “Even though the overbearing weight of suffering often debilitates our minds and bodies,” and, “Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere,” (Coetzee, pg. 156) Often our growth is in the knowledge of the inevitability of suffering. It is something we cannot stop, and if we try, we cease living. Suffering is the driving force of societal and personal maturation.

Works Cited

Coetzee, J.M. Waiting for the Barbarians. New York: Penguin, 1982. Pg. 21, 154, 155, 156. Print.

DeLillo, Don, and Richard Powers. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 2009. Pg8, 10, 15, 17, 30, 31, 38, 53, 128, 201, 217, 243-244, 246, 271, 272, 299. Print.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. Newly Revised Ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. Pg. 42, 43, 83, 116, 135, 143, 161, 290, 292, 333. Print.

Joyce, James. "Araby." Blackboard Learn. Web. 13 May 2015. Pg. 5. <https://ramct.colostate.edu/>.

Joyce, James. "Blackboard Learn- "The Dead"" Blackboard Learn. Web. 13 May 2015. Pg. 21. <http://ramct.colostate.edu/>.

"Love." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love>.

Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Deluxe Ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Pg. 3, 5, 20, 23, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 43, 44, 48, 49, 55, 75. Print.

Nealon, Jeffrey T., and Susan Searls Giroux. The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. Pg. 22, 27, 43. Print.

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