I started reading Don Quixote a few weeks ago for the following reasons. One, I love reading! I am a nerd, and I surround myself with nerds, and so I always have to have some literature at hand to read when we decide that we’re bored of the five thousand piece puzzle we’re working on and aren’t in the mood for scrabble or trivial pursuit. Yes, sometimes I hang out with friends and we all just read…together. It’s a beautiful thing. (However, lately I’ve been getting a lot of flack for my special reading voice so it’s usually each reader to him or herself.) My next shot at the NCLEX is in a couple weeks and studying all the time is making me feel crazy again, so I need another book to fall back on when my course book is looking less than appealing. I also happened upon a sale at the bookstore on classics and decided to pick up a couple of the heaviest ones that I haven’t read. The result I’m pretty pumped for, and it’s beginning with Don here.
In his preface to the reader, Miguel de Cervantes addresses his audience with the following introduction.
“Idle reader, without an oath thou mayest believe, that I wish this book, as the child of my imagination, were the most beautiful, sprightly and intelligent production that ever was conceived. But, it was not in my power to contravene the power of nature, in consequence of which, every creature procreates is own resemblance: what therefore could be engendered in my barren, ill-cultivated genius, but a dry, shriveled offspring, wayward, capricious and full with whimsical thoughts peculiar to his own imagination, as if produced in a prison, which is the seat of inconvenience, and home to every dismal sound.”
First of all, I love the way he addresses me as desocupado (idle). This is exactly how I am as a reader. I have no job and thus have plenty of leisure time, and am using that time to read his novel. It hit me for a moment (thanks to an informative footnote) that when this was written many Spaniards were in the habit of cultivating leisure as an end in itself, versus using it for its productivity. I find myself currently much of this same condition. And so I actively decided to make my leisure time more productive so as to not fall into the trap of futility that I seem to be sliding toward.
I was also quite inspired by the way he downplays his own writing and describes the way we create from ourselves. This is a similar idea to that brought up within the first few sections of the novel, when he writes, “Every one is the son of his own works.” What we do is either a product of who we are or makes us who we are. This is interesting for me to think about from my recent frame of reference of feeling a lack of accomplishment. I look at the little I have been able to do in my life and can clearly see how either it illustrated who I was or sculpted who I am. At this point, I began to examine the current endeavors of my life both daily and sporadically and how this exemplifies my own genius and self.
I first considered the fact that I very much so see myself in the missionary role, and love the fact that I have a decent amount of experience on that front that I think very precisely demonstrates my heart. However, I have no planned trips for the future. Does this mean I’m changing? That my priorities have changed? We shall see.
(Please note that this is a post-dated entry, thank you.)
No comments:
Post a Comment