A Writing/Literature Student’s Curse

I remember taking out a sheet of lined paper and placing it on the table to write. It took me a second to start. The words flowed; I did not really care about the choice in words or even the grammar. It was a foolish attempt to write and the time when I wrote some of the most illegible pieces I have ever done. But many of the ideas from back then survived. Many of the “big projects” come from that time.

Scratching my head, rubbing my eyes, I can’t seem to write like that anymore. The words must go through a careful screening process. Each one must convey the exact meaning I want. Every action must only be the correct one. I can’t let any interpretation change the way any reader perceives the story.

That is the curse of literature’s student. When I added the literature major as an undergrad in my senior year, I immersed myself in a world where words could be interpreted. For the longest time, I only assumed the author’s intent had true meaning. If a reader failed to see what the author wanted, the author failed and so did their work. There was not much to it.

This field, the literary field, opened a door, one that showed the power of interpretation. A simple action, a girl smiling across the hall, could mean something huge in a book. Was it attraction? Friendship? Acceptance? All words in books led down to several hundred paths, all acceptable options of understanding and criticism. It was great! I could say anything and everything. My essays for school became true criticism. I could justify my personal interpretations and judge books in a completely different ways. Terrible books became good books. Good books became amazing.

Everything spun out of control. I let this “field” spill into the real world. I stopped enjoying some things I used to. Comic books became dry and unoriginal. I could see little problems they had that “true” literature did not. The same happened to movies. I became a cynical critic. I wish it had stopped there. I started analyzing people’s actions and words. Everything they said came with a huge weight of meaning. A good morning, depending on the emphasis of words, could mean things so different that I broke my head to understand them. I wished there was an off button. I wished I could turn it off. Graduate school made it worse.

This year, I began going back. I decided to use old types of criticism. No more reader response. I enslaved myself to historical criticism. In order to validate understanding, I had to look at its origins. I thought that would somehow stop me from analyzing things. It did not.

Now, I joke about it. I act oblivious and lie about things. I do it to be happy. I attempt to ignore actions. I ask for explanations and annoy people in the process. Yet, my mind goes through hundreds of scenarios, hundreds of explanations, and hundreds of meanings when someone talks to me. But I joke about it. I laugh and say, “I tend to over analyze things.”