A Short Introduction
"But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer." The Bluest Eye page 110 by Toni Morrison
I’ve been thinking a lot about writing the past semester. I changed my major from political science (on the pre-law track) to a double major in English and Philosophy. When I think about it, probably should have been the goal all along. Those who know me know I will tie any and every conversation that I can back to my philosophy classes and conversations that I’ve had with my good friend Fina about Freud and Carl Jung.
I attend Loyola University in Chicago and although it’s not the most prestigious form of higher education it is all I have had beyond High School. Throughout my college application process, I imagined myself moving out of Madison Wisconsin and running away to New York City to go to art school. I visited in November of 2021 and saw La Boheme at the Met - my goal since I watched Moonstruck that spring. On my third day there I had a panic attack thinking about leaving my family and not having anyone in such a big city. This unraveled the dream along with the fact I didn't get into any NYC schools I applied to.
Looking back now, I question whether or not I wanted to move to New York because that was the cool thing to do and when I said that’s what I was going to do, it sounded like I knew what I wanted with my life. In reality, I was applying to college saying I wanted to be a physics major when in reality I struggle with basic math - this is not me being humble. I am a Leo and also the oldest child of three. I don't always think I can be humble.
For Thanksgiving break this year I went to Princeton, New Jersey. On my second day there we were walking around town with the family friend we came to visit when he casually pointed to a house on the corner as we passed saying, “This is Toni Morrison’s old house.” Shocked, I stopped walking and took my phone out to take a photo. I imagined what it would be like to live in a Victorian house like that, writing some of the best pieces in literature to this day, then walking down the street to one of the top Universities in the world to teach. I wonder now if she enjoyed it.
At the same time, I was taking a social and political philosophy class twice a week. I was three-fourths of the way through Sula when I came back from break and we covered Simone Weil’s The Iliad, or, The Poem of Force in class. Morrison mentioned a fourth face of God in the book, "He was not the God of the three faces that they sang about. They knew quite well that He had four, and that the fourth explained Sula. They have lived with various forms of evil all their days, and it wasn't that they believed God would take care of them. It was rather that they knew God had a brother and that brother hadn't spared God's son, so why should he spare them? .... The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over." (pg. 118) This, in many ways, reflects Weil’s philosophy of force.
For next week’s discussion post, I tied the two readings together. Both talk about surviving something that is beyond the physical but interacts within it. This has happened more and more as my day-to-day area of study has gotten more aligned with my interests.
Visiting and seeing Morrison’s past home was affirming in the decision that I’ve made within the past year concerning my education. I envisioned myself - a first-generation college student, of lower-middle-class standing, young - tormented by the pressure an institution like Princeton would put on my shoulders and crumble under it.
When I came home for winter break my step-mom reminded me that if I started a substack she would read it and this encouraged me enough to start. I still have more brainstorming of how I want to use this space as my own and build a true representation of my thoughts, but introductions are always a good place to start.