In some ways, that’s exactly what art is—a way of showing the extent to which one understands about people, the world. When we think, for example, of the world’s greatest writers, we list those who have done this well—those who have understood something about people, and put that something into words.
In Chicago there are people called “apartment finders.” There’s probably a technical term, like a “broker” or a “realtor”, but who cares. You tell them what you’re looking for and they hunt it down.
I like Talia because she has a bumper sticker that proclaims, “The Day of Non-Judgement is Near” and she buys all her clothes from a thrift store. I once told her that I still found someone who once broke my heart irresistibly attractive. She told me, “There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty where it is.”
Everyone knows the basic concept: stand on the shoulder with a thumb in the air until a driver pulls over. But that alone will get you glares, pitying glances, and head shakes. Through online research and personal experience, I have discovered a few tricks to effective thumbing, so you, too, can hit the road.
Something about studying words at Calvin was special. The camaraderie and community among faculty, staff, and students in the department was tangible. I was taught, but I was also nurtured.
Fellow Calvinites, if you, like my unfortunate college roommate and Michigan native have never been farther west than—what did he say?—Iowa!, then you have never lived.
Imagination can lead further than empathy, though. If I act upon empathy, if I stop grumbling about that huge SUV or the car that just cut me off and instead consider my fellow drivers as people with legitimate fears or beginners somewhat shaky on the road, then I accord them some grace.
In order to reframe our writing, we need to see the world through a writer’s frame. What experiences, once put to words, will make compelling literature? Or start a discussion? Or, in their tedium, force readers to confront their boredom and test out what “counts” as art?
Those professors who warned us how hard it was to keep up post-college writing when no one is making you do it, possibly they made it quite clear that it was a choice. Even a responsibility.
