On the way home the other night I decided to stop off at the local bar for a brew. I ended up at the end of the bar talking to a 22 year old guy who just moved to Denver from the east coast by way of oil fields in New Mexico. He told me that he is going to Metro State for a nutrition and physical fitness degree of sorts. I don't remember his name so I will call him Chris. Chris stood about 5'10" and weighed roughly 145 lbs, and this was not okay with him. He wants more.
During this conversation I did not ask him too many detailed questions, just general inquiries... the standard who, what, why, where, when sort of questions. Chris wants to be a gym teacher and help kids achieve their "ideal weight" and "pursue their dreams" of physical stature. These sentiments stuck with me as the days passed. He wasn't and still isn't happy with what he sees in the mirror in the morning or the reactions he may get from other men and women. I do give him this; he is changing what he doesn't like about his image instead of perpetually getting down on himself and doing nothing about it. What I don't like is this; who we are and how we see ourselves is not entirely up to us, it's become more and more up to our surroundings and how others may react to what they see on the surface. I was beginning to internalize Chris' plight and began to think about how it has affected my own life and how I have come to see myself.
I was not unlike Chris growing up, nor my two brothers. I am the middle of three late blooming boys. Entering in to high school my older brother was the smallest human being in the entire school, weighing in at a meager 70 pounds, barely exceeding the five foot mark. I maybe had an inch and five pounds more than he and that's being generous. My little brother was just the same. As every other pubescent teen in high school was gaining muscles, facial hair, and popularity... we were growing more awkward as puberty seemed to have taken the scenic route on the way to our bodies. It wasn't until my senior year that I went from barely 5 foot tall to the 6'1" I am today.
I had held many insecurities about my body during this time. Occasionally it will resurface and when it does I tell myself that as long as I am okay with me, the world should accept it as well. This was not always the case. Living in the suburbs where every thing is cookie cutter, in addition to TV, magazines, movies, commercials, etc., I realized I didn't fit the mold. Flashing images dictate that 6 pack abs and prominent biceps meant popularity and some sort of pseudo social success. Same goes for women; you must have the right curves but not too many, you must have the right make-up but not too much, and in order to have "Prince Charming" you have to be a perfect woman. No flaws allowed, only perfection.
Our society is only to blame for what has been created. We've done it to ourselves. This thought of needing to have the perfect body and face instead of having your own body and face is our fault.&pnbsp; It has created a sort of demonic standard that is nearly impossible to achieve. Western culture has turned the individual to an assembly line of internal and external criterion that is quite disenchanting and effectively ruining the internal desire to become your own person, unique but still a part of a whole. Chuck Klosterman argues that we've become a society of individuals that not only can, but need to be summed up in one word. The walking contradictions of self have been demolished. No longer can you be categorized in a myriad of ways, it has become one. You are one thing, and that one thing better be perfect.
Over the last few years I have come to embrace who I am. It came after years of attempting to fit in. It came when I realized that no matter who I am, no matter what I look like, no matter what persona I display, no matter the clothes I wear, no matter the thoughts in my head... there will be opposition. There will be someone who is different. That is what is beautiful about this world and being a living, breathing, emotional human; that there isn't just one way to be alive and thus there should be no standards of aesthetics. Come to surround yourself with people who embrace you as you are. Forego the ideals that come with being a part of a group. Be a human. Be yourself... and love that self that you are inside and out. Remember you're alive, remember you're breathing. Everything else will fall right in to place.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
David Foster Wallace Speech
“Americans seemed no longer united so much by common beliefs as by common images: what binds us became what we stand witness to. Nobody sees this as a good change. In fact, op-cultural references have become such potent metaphors in U.S. fiction not only because of how united Americans are in our exposure to mass images but also because of our guilty indulgent psychology with respect to that exposure. Put simply, the pop reference works so well in contemporary fiction because (1) we all recognize such a reference, and (2) we’re all a little uneasy about how we all recognize such a reference.”
David Foster Wallace wrote this in his essay titled E UNIBUS PLURAM Television and U.S. Fiction, the second essay in this book - an essay and argument collection called A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. While I have not read all of David Foster Wallace’s books, what I have read has convinced me to tell you all to pick up one of his books and indulge your mind. Tonight, I want to share with you a little about his life and death, some reviews of his books, and finish off with another quite vivid quote.
David Foster Wallace, born February 21, 1962 in Ithaca, New York. His father, James Donald Wallace, accepted a job in Urbana, Illinois after finishing his graduate work in philosophy at Cornell. His mother, Sally Foster Wallace, attended graduate school in english composition at the University of Illinois. While living in Illinois, David Foster Wallace was a regionally ranked junior tennis player - tennis became a subject of lots of his writing. Here a few copies of an essay - A Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley - that speaks of this very same subject.
David Foster Wallace went on to attend his father’s alma matter - Amherst College - where he majored Summa cum laude in English and Philosophy with a focus modal logic and mathematics. Later receiving his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. His senior thesis - The Broom of the System - was bought and published as his first novel in 1987. He didn’t intend on being a writer, he says specifically, “I discovered that I really liked creative writing (in college). For most of my college career I was supposed to go on and do math or philosophy or math which were things I was good little nerd at. It’s odd, I don’t really think myself as a writer. I think of it as an experiment that is kind of going okay right now and we’ll have to see what happens... While I was there (at the graduate writing program), a novel I did in college was bought. I think once you have something big get bought, then technically you’re a writer - I think it fulfills the criteria in the dictionary.”
After abandoning studying philosophy at Harvard, he accepted a position in the English Department at University of Illinois where he taught a few classes and focused on writing Infinite Jest. He also has written for a number of magazines; including but not limited to Esquire, GQ, Harpers, The New Yorker and the Paris Review. In 2002, he moved to southern California to become the first Roy E. Disney Endowed Professor of Creative Writing and a Professor of English at Pomona College.
After battling over 20 years of depression, taking various medications and even electroconvolusive therapy, did not work. David Foster Wallace ended his life by hanging him self at his home in southern California on September 12, 2008.
On a brighter note, let’s talk about his work;
Mark Flanagan described his work as follows, “David Foster Wallace was well-known for his stylistic experimentation, often challenging word choices, and lengthy, demanding sentence structure. Wallace’s inventiveness often seemed to be for its own sake, but it made his work addictively fun to read, like the deciphering of a particularly challenging puzzle.”
Infinite Jest, his 1,100 page masterpiece, argues through fiction that views American society as self-obsessed, pleasure-obsessed and entertainment-obsessed. After publishing this book in 1996, David Foster Wallace was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Grant - popularly called the “genius award.” Time magazine listed this book as one of the best english written novels over the last century. “ A virtuoso display... There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page,” says R.Z. Sheppard of Time Magazine. Dan Cryer of Newsday wrote, “ Exhilarating, breathtaking.. The book teems with so much life and death, so much hilarity and pain, so much gusto in the face of despair that one cheers for the future of our literature.” His book Brief Interviews of Hideous Men was critically acclaimed, won the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by the editors of The Paris Reveiw, and was recently turned in to a movie.
His life was short, but his works of literary genius will live on forever. I have shared a little about his life and gave you some reviews of his work. I will now leave you with one final quote by David Foster Wallace. This is from an essay he wrote about a state fair - this is specifically about the baton twirling competition.
David Foster Wallace wrote this in his essay titled E UNIBUS PLURAM Television and U.S. Fiction, the second essay in this book - an essay and argument collection called A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. While I have not read all of David Foster Wallace’s books, what I have read has convinced me to tell you all to pick up one of his books and indulge your mind. Tonight, I want to share with you a little about his life and death, some reviews of his books, and finish off with another quite vivid quote.
David Foster Wallace, born February 21, 1962 in Ithaca, New York. His father, James Donald Wallace, accepted a job in Urbana, Illinois after finishing his graduate work in philosophy at Cornell. His mother, Sally Foster Wallace, attended graduate school in english composition at the University of Illinois. While living in Illinois, David Foster Wallace was a regionally ranked junior tennis player - tennis became a subject of lots of his writing. Here a few copies of an essay - A Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley - that speaks of this very same subject.
David Foster Wallace went on to attend his father’s alma matter - Amherst College - where he majored Summa cum laude in English and Philosophy with a focus modal logic and mathematics. Later receiving his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. His senior thesis - The Broom of the System - was bought and published as his first novel in 1987. He didn’t intend on being a writer, he says specifically, “I discovered that I really liked creative writing (in college). For most of my college career I was supposed to go on and do math or philosophy or math which were things I was good little nerd at. It’s odd, I don’t really think myself as a writer. I think of it as an experiment that is kind of going okay right now and we’ll have to see what happens... While I was there (at the graduate writing program), a novel I did in college was bought. I think once you have something big get bought, then technically you’re a writer - I think it fulfills the criteria in the dictionary.”
After abandoning studying philosophy at Harvard, he accepted a position in the English Department at University of Illinois where he taught a few classes and focused on writing Infinite Jest. He also has written for a number of magazines; including but not limited to Esquire, GQ, Harpers, The New Yorker and the Paris Review. In 2002, he moved to southern California to become the first Roy E. Disney Endowed Professor of Creative Writing and a Professor of English at Pomona College.
After battling over 20 years of depression, taking various medications and even electroconvolusive therapy, did not work. David Foster Wallace ended his life by hanging him self at his home in southern California on September 12, 2008.
On a brighter note, let’s talk about his work;
Mark Flanagan described his work as follows, “David Foster Wallace was well-known for his stylistic experimentation, often challenging word choices, and lengthy, demanding sentence structure. Wallace’s inventiveness often seemed to be for its own sake, but it made his work addictively fun to read, like the deciphering of a particularly challenging puzzle.”
Infinite Jest, his 1,100 page masterpiece, argues through fiction that views American society as self-obsessed, pleasure-obsessed and entertainment-obsessed. After publishing this book in 1996, David Foster Wallace was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Grant - popularly called the “genius award.” Time magazine listed this book as one of the best english written novels over the last century. “ A virtuoso display... There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page,” says R.Z. Sheppard of Time Magazine. Dan Cryer of Newsday wrote, “ Exhilarating, breathtaking.. The book teems with so much life and death, so much hilarity and pain, so much gusto in the face of despair that one cheers for the future of our literature.” His book Brief Interviews of Hideous Men was critically acclaimed, won the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by the editors of The Paris Reveiw, and was recently turned in to a movie.
His life was short, but his works of literary genius will live on forever. I have shared a little about his life and gave you some reviews of his work. I will now leave you with one final quote by David Foster Wallace. This is from an essay he wrote about a state fair - this is specifically about the baton twirling competition.
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