Looking for depth in our modern world
When did the newspaper column begin? I begin this way because I haven’t been here in a while. (I am here partly because when I am away, I am not the same.)
You open a newspaper (still a physical one in my old world) and the space is demarcated into columns, dividing the way we apprehend the world into subjects or ideas. The political scene gets its own columns, and so does the economy and sports. And right there, often as the last section, is the Lifestyle section. We flip through these pages, we accept the demarcations of space and never take the time to wonder how these columns shape the way we think; how the columns keep many of the values we maintain erect and strong.
I teach writing in the university, and in particular the writing of the essay—which most columns consist of. The world is funny and we call essays “nonfiction” or “creative nonfiction.” In all truth, everything is writing and everything we write is a combination of fact and fiction. What really matters most is the intent of the writer. What does one want to do with these words at one’s disposal? Do I want to tell a story? Do I want to study what happened to me today and what it says about me, and ultimately about you? About you and me and the absurdity of living—that’s the province of all letters. How many times have you looked at our political columns and wished they were fiction rather than fact? Ah, such lines are blurred more and more these days.
Everything is language and everything is narrative and the writer continues to hold the power of the word in his or her (or they and them) hands and we chisel knowledge, information, facts—knowing that in this world where you can access information in a second, depth has a different pathway. It is a pursuit, I tell you. Wisdom is not information and wisdom is the ultimate goal. Or at least it used to be.
When I was young, my parents had clearly demarcated times. They worked like mad, in their respective offices by 8 a.m., sometimes earlier. You knew the day had ended when you’d find my mother in the garden doing calisthenics. There she was, in her workclothes but in sneakers, walking energetically, doing arm circles. In their world, work time was clearly demarcated, too. You couldn’t really bring work home. You closed your office door, left your office and went home. And at home, you were someone else.
When you can sit in a place where you can say you are looking for wisdom and cannot find it, and yet not panic, then you have begun to sit with wisdom.
To the young observer in me, the walk would signal the sunset and the sunset would mean dinner. And after dinner? My father would ask for the newspapers. He would already have perused all of them in the morning. But at night, he savored them. Back then, evenings felt longer because, after the papers, they would read magazines, namely Time and Newsweek. After magazines, out would come books: perhaps the newest novel or the newest book on business, for my father. I’d watch them (because that’s what I always did—aware that they were not to be disturbed) from my own room, keeping the adjoining door open. Television wasn’t 24/7 so one could live in a real silence, and the silence would be punctuated by the turn of newspaper pages that you would have to fold over because of the size. Or my mother would comment on an article from a magazine or at 8:30 p.m. hopia would be opened! It felt like the crown jewel to open the snack that arrived in paper, fastened with a simple adhesive. If it was basketball season then it was mani. Yes, they were snackers, too.
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This is not a piece about days gone by or even an argument that the old ways were better. Only the foolish hunger for the past to return. I teach young adults and their world is as interesting and one could argue even more interesting than mine could ever be or ever was. I never think myself better or better off and, in fact, acknowledge that in many ways, I know so much less—in quantity for sure. It thrills them to teach me the ways of their world! Their language is hippie-ish, full of puns and inflections. I don’t have the heart to tell them that playing with language is not a young thing. It’s a very, very, very old thing.
What does it mean to know anything deeply in this day and age? How does one achieve depth?
Would I say my parents had more depth in their tiny world of demarcated space and time, ignorant of the larger world outside? Or would I say my young students are deep, based on the number of disparate things they know: cultural movements, memes, TikTok trends, world news, almost everything available and measurable? In every age, the call to depth is a siren call, difficult to hear but needed for a deep, deep life. How to get it? How to have it? How to love it when it arrives?
This summer, in my class, I believe I said something revolutionary. To me, at least, because I had never articulated it before—had never meant to even say it out loud. It was this: education can teach you what to do, but education must also teach you how to be. Those are two demarcations, divisions even, and education must find a way for them to unite. What you do is a job, or a profession, and almost anyone can be taught that. But how to be: that “be” is where character lives, where decisions are made, when tragedy strikes, or (gasp!) when happiness arrives; or when loss is unexpected or wealth appears—one needs depth for that.
I am lucky enough to live and work in these strange, in-between times—some things remain in clear columns and demarcations; a center still holds. But I am also aware of how fluid this new world is—with fewer and fewer demarcations of space, gender, work, rest, faith and time. The irony of the wise person is that one always knows one is ignorant and is strangely peaceful with that. But I will not leave you hanging, you who are reading this. Where is wisdom? Any writer worth a column will proffer a possible way through.
When you can sit in a place where you can say you are looking for wisdom and cannot find it, and yet not panic, then you have begun to sit with wisdom.