the wonder years

Written 3 years ago (almost to the date):

So why is it that i continue with literature?
Perhaps that question is best answered by tracing the journey from its origins. Undoubtedly the first stage of reading, that stage when meaning and motive had no demands on the consciousness, was positively thrilling and no, not unreal, but paradisical. And then to get initiated into the 'study' of literature, not only for the purpose of obtaining a degree, but also finding the 'inner light', the 'path' or whatever one chooses to call it, a study that seemed supremely satisfying at moments when one discovered heroes. Finding oneself then, with so much guidance and so many truths flying around invisibly, seemed like an entirely worthwhile and absorbing preoccupation. Not that it doesn't anymore- I'm still only 20. But i do occasionally have to justify the Masters to myself.
But today as I was thinking about it, as I do every other day, there was this feeling that came over me, not overwhelming in the least degree, but one which quietly shook my senses. This is what it was- I felt that I was reading not in order to seek reality but to reaffirm the reality and solidity, if you please, of my existence. It is like the painting of Turner's where the pale pink-yellow light of the morning sky gives shape to the shipping vessel on the horizon, a vessel which has no contours of its own.
Do i find my sense of being in words? Or is it that because of this cultivated habit of looking at words and real, lived life in a perpetual antithesis of reflection, I am falling into the trap of the literateurs, the novelists, the scriptwriters, songwriters et al? I verily believe its neither. It seems I, possibly like 'many others'(the community of the imagination which is conveniently called upon to review my thoughts and share good music with yours truly now and then)- yes, as I was saying, we seem to be walking on Derrida's moebius strip, anxious of falling off at any moment to land up free falling into the abyss of signifiers and equally anxious to latch on to the strip itself, hopelessly penning down cleches to save the 'reality' of innumerable experiences in the 'reality' of memory.
So really, seeing as I'm now conscious of being on the strip and can occasionally look down into the face of terror,its quite natural that I can't do without literature. Without the pressure of cramming for exams perhaps- no, definately. But not without lit.