Final Thoughts

After thinking back on the blog posts I’ve made and the texts we have read, a few things stand clear to me. It appears that history is a key component to our identities. It’s the main theme in Winterson’s Stone Gods, as a re-imagining of history, as greentealea phrased it in her blog. It’s the main argument between Bloom and Zappa’s disagreement – Bloom wanted to stick to a rigid, closed-minded history while Zappa wanted to create his own. History was forever changed in Ancient Rome because Socrates dared to believe differently and to believe in something grander and more spiritual than his peers believed. 

Texts, literature, art, music, architecture, archeological evidence – these are all pieces of history. Our history, the history of humanity. Do we agree with everything that ever happened? No, of course not but we don’t need to believe everything either. We need to believe only the things that make us stronger, more aware personally, as an inward focus. Do we have answers to all the questions? No, but we don’t need answers to everything so long as we keep asking questions. 

Has humanity always been the same, throughout the course of the human history? Not a chance. Through art and literature, societies have been able to read and absorb information about what occurred ten, one hundred, one thousand years ago and take that information as part of a piece of their own personal history. When we each have different, unique, personal histories, our humanity will evolve and flourish. We need to keep compassion alive, keep curiosity alive, keep history alive to keep ourselves alive. 

Jeannette Winterson Reflections

After watching the interview “An Evening with Jeannette Winterson,” I felt enlightened, more knowledgeable of the real meaning of life. Winterson uses self-experience and humor to discuss what she believes to be real humanity, and it resonates. It’s captivating. So, what does it mean to be human? According to Winterson, “all of it is about connection, we live in a web, one with another.” She expresses the necessity of self-acceptance as a part of successfully integrating ourselves with society and we need to be supportive of each other. 

She goes on to say that “our inner lives don’t work according to the clock, or the calendar or to any received chronology. That’s not how it is. Our psychic processes are indifferent to time. When we remember things we don’t remember them in sequence, we remember according to the emotional significance of the memory and that can be random and it can change and shift over time too….[memories] force you to reconsider the whole picture which is perhaps what we’re meant to do.” Is Winterson correct? Is self-reflection and self-acceptance a key to our humanity? 

Furthermore, Winterson discussed the importance of literature and keeping language and text alive in our society. She asks, “where has the sacred gone? We can’t find language for that anymore…The place that we know exists, we find it in our dreams, our imaginations, within ourselves.” Since we can’t find language for that anymore, Winterson tells us that we can find that in other people’s writing, texts that other people have written because “we need to reclaim those things back for ourselves.” Those things she was referring to is the soul, the spirit, things incredibly crucial to our own humanity as it will reflect how we relate to the humanity of others. Yes, it’s very difficult being honest with ourselves and with other people but we absolutely have to be honest. Winterson explains:

“Truth for anybody is a very complex thing. What lies beyond the margin of the text? There are so many things we can’t say because they are too painful and we hope that the things that we can say will soothe the rest. Or appease it in some way. Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. When we tell a story we exercise control but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It’s a version but never the final one. We hope the silences will be heard by someone else and the story will continue and will be retold. Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.”

It all goes back to Jeannette’s closing words: “all of it is about connection, we live in a web, one with another.”