When We Are Not Sure, We Are Alive

The titles of chapters O, P and Q are contradiction, doubt and thinking respectively. I found these chapters interesting as they show the uncertainty of the human mind. We don't and will not understand everything and our thoughts aren't perfect or logical. This topic is relevant in the book as it deals with how we express and perceive ideas, which is ultimately our reality and our art. 
Humans feel superior to other animals, and well I guess we are, but we still have the same type of thinking. In studies to see children's emotional coefficients (EQs), scientists have seen that a lot simply cannot control themselves from eating candy even if they know they'll get a better reward if they wait. Some kids did wait and were rewarded, but short-term instincts are part of all humans at some point. Even when we know that doing something will not be good eventually, we often act upon impulses. Our brains are not completely logical so we must try to make the best out of them. 

Shields writes several antithetical statements like "This sentence is a lie" (pg. 135), "Something can be true and untrue at the same time" (pg. 135) and "There's nothing and everything going on" (pg. 137). The first shows that things can be contradictory. Two opposing ideas can coexist because there isn't one reality where things are either true or false, as the second antithetical statement says. The third points out that perception changes reality. Previous chapter included all these ideas but Shields is now showing not only that there are many realities, as I wrote in previous blog posts, but that the term reality is paradoxical. I guess that in our search for truth we will find many because our brains are genetically susceptible to see everything differently. I acknowledge that I have a very Darwinist way of thinking but humans simply are quarreling lost animals and don't have the capacity to be objective (there is "evidence" that genes influence politics). Shields writes, "The real story isn't the official story; the real story is my version (wrong, too, but I'm aware that it's wrong) of the official story" (pg. 139).  Since everyone sees things differently, there cannot be one reality. There are many realities, which is paradoxical with the definition of reality: "the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them," according to my computer's dictionary.

There simply will not be one truth.

Representation Hunger

Humans crave a representation of their live making art exist. As chapter K says, people want to see aspects of their lives in TV. Those aspects, distortions of their realities, make them happy as they see richer or sexier lives with the same human problems. Others get some type of catharsis by seeing someone worse off or simply funny. When I read the first Harry Potter book, probably around seven, I honestly wanted a Hogwarts letter and incorporated the book series into my games (like fake Quidditch). I think commercial and superficial "art" reveals that humans by nature want literature that shows their lives reinvented. 

Michael Kimball (from the article) allowed people to see their lives in a summarized simple way that made them happy. As David Shields points out in chapters K, M and N, people want to see their dreamed reality in literature, as Kimball's postcards showed people's lives. The writer of the Guardian article, referring to the postcards, wrote, "It felt like being exposed, but also strangely satisfying; the postcard doesn't sum up my life, but what got me to where I am now. It's a snapshot of a moment." As a short and oversimplifying type of literature, the postcards show what people want to read. People like enjoy reading them and apparently can even cure their depression from it. Memoirs are the same. This genre is defined as a written account of someone's memory of certain events or people. Authors craft a version of their lives when choosing what and how to write. As everything we do and say is rhetorical, and people like to win, whenever you can show a reality you'll want to show your version of it. Art seeks to find fulfillment--its purpose is to satisfy its creator (I've never heard of anyone who writes or creates some type of art to hurt him or herself). It is clear that literature is biased in the author's interests. As people share existential problems, readers often find a similar satisfaction as the author.

Shields is trying to show that nonfiction doesn't exist. It is an abstract idea that is incompatible with the human mind. Section 385 describes that point: "The roominess of the term nonfiction: an entire dresser labeled nonsocks." Shields also quotes, "We make a mistake in thinking of memoir as nonfiction. It's really nonpoetry" (pg. 134). These chapters of Reality Hunger pointed out that the usual term of nonfiction doesn't work on human-made works.

Twisting His Words

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Self-Created Realities

As I read further into Reality Hunger, I've begun to understand what David Shields means by the title. The first chapters talked about imitation in language (mimesis), the recurring ideas in art along history, the changes and problems of art in the present and, finally, what reality is. The answer to that, as I've understood, is that there isn't a single definition. Reality is a blur that each of us defines. Shields, using a new genre, is trying to show that the typical ones (fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, etc.) are not enough and that we need a new type of art that helps us understand our realities. 

Did he really look like that?

G-blur
If there is something that I've gotten so far from Reality Hunger is that our defined genres have aged enough and do not work well for our societies. In chapter G, Shields introduces that fiction and nonfiction works cannot be categorized into only one category. In section 205 says, “The poles of fiction and nonfiction are constantly bouncing their force fields back and forth between each other." Although I hadn't thought of it ever before, now I really agree with Shields point. The modernist strict distinctions between genres have fallen apart and are now outdated for people's means of expression. A book nowadays isn't strictly of one of those two genres. 

I've recently read several of David Sedaris' memoirs or essay collections and a biography of Louis XIV. Supposedly both are nonfiction but they're truly just different ways of expression. In chapter G, Shields refers to genres saying "It's all in the art" (section 225), and think it applies to these books. Sedaris shows his reality were he portrays his family in a very biased way. Some books of his books show the same people in different ways. For example, in some personal essays his father is strict and close-minded but in others he is laid back and comforting, showing that there's not one reality. I'm sure that Sedaris works off from actual events but the absurd situations he often writes about include distortions from his memory and desire to make it funnier. His memoirs are fictitious nonfiction. As for Louis XIV's biography, the author constantly cites her sources or mentions facts. The author probably wants her book to be very historically accurate but if you compare her interpretations about the French king with others, you see that there isn't one right version. When someone writes nonfiction, he or she twists it into fiction simply by writing it. There isn't fiction or nonfiction as you would need a single reality to define what each genre is. 

H-now

We live in an age where facts, whether we perceive them as “real” or fictitious, are pushed against us. With the media and social networking showing us a version of what’s happening, and so making us doubt the truthfulness of incidents, we are becoming hungry for reality. I feel that chapters H and I began to introduce Shields’ idea of our reality hunger and what it means. In section 245, Shields presents people’s enigmas in the twenty-first century, which I agree with: 

The culture disseminates greater and greater access to the technology that creates various forms of media. "Ordinary" people's cult of personal celebrity is nurtured by these new modes of communication and presentation and representation. We're all secretly practicing for when we, too, will join the ranks of the celebrated. There used to be a monopoly on the resources of exposure. The rising sophistication of the nonexpert in combination with the sensory overload of the culture makes reality-based and self-reflexive art appealing now. There are little cracks in the wall, and all of us "regular" people are pushing through like water or, perhaps, weeds.

As the excerpt shows, technology clearly changes the rules of sharing. There are several points to note. First is the creation of the "personal celebrity." The superficiality nucleus of society previously seen in social magazines or journalism is now spread over everyone's life. With Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (among thousands of similar websites), everyone can watch their friends' lives and his or her own in a screen, as if everybody cared. Many people communicate with others showing it to everyone (through Facebook) and post everything that happens to them through tweets and, thanks to smartphones, to Instagram, as public figures in the past made public announcements. Now everyone worries about communication, many boost their egos and others destroy theirs.

The other point, the one I like better, is that everyone can share and access knowledge (if you have technology). It is evident that  by sharing new movements can emerge before anyone has time to even notice. People started the revolutions of the Arab Spring because they realized what their situations were and they carried out the revolutions by inciting them online. The twenty-first century will have a lot of social and artistic movements because technology will allow them to grow quickly. The barriers in art and society that were imposed in the past are not longer sustainable for people's necessities and with technology that allows every person to engage globally, they will not survive. Section 245 shows the scenario Shields has described about the rise of postmodernism. 

I-the reality-based community

"People like you are in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality (judiciously, as you will), we'll act again, creating other realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you–all of you–will be left to just study what we do" (Section 253).

I agree with section 253 of Reality Hunger as it supports what I was writing about chapter G. As the world changes to become one in which every person can actually make a difference, art and society change. I do believe in the clichéd saying that everyone can make a difference in the world but only if you have access to technology. Shields mentions this "reality-based" community to show the change to postmodernism. The traditional society of the twentieth century has changed and so have our ways of expression. I suspect Shields will expand on that point specifically in art or literature. 

________________________________________

I read several of my classmates' blogs and I agree to some extent with most of their interpretations of the book. From those that I read, the only that I disagree with was Lina's explanation of section 188. The fragment she quotes says, "I like to write stuff that's only an inch from life." Lina condemns that writer as a liar but if you see it from Shields' perspective there are no lies in art. Just like there isn't fiction or nonfiction or one reality, art cannot be a lie. She sees "unreal" writing as something bad, caused by our bad memory and feelings. I believe that perspective is what Reality Hunger says we need to get rid off. I understood section 188 as an example of the blur in genres and how that's OK.

Ambivalent Writing

After looking back at my research paper, I can see that there were some issues in my writing. Mr Tangen wrote, "I think the paper could have benefited from more coherence, but given the wide scope of the assignment I completely understood," something with which I agree. I believe my paper was good enough but I tried to cover a topic too large for a six-page essay.

What I understood overall from Mr Tangen's comments is that I need to integrate better my ideas throughout my writing and improve my diction. As in most of my writing, I used awkward words that probably only sound OK for students in CNG or people who speak a Spanish-influenced version of English. A lot of times CNG students like me use words that are phonetic translation of words in Spanish but have different meanings or connotations in English. Many of these end up sounding too French or Latin, like in an 18th or 19th century book (as we learned that during that time some people tried to incorporate Latin roots to make English more sophisticated). However, writing like that only sounds pompous or incoherent, not sophisticated. As for explaining my thesis better, or having "more coherence," I think that as I read and write more, I'll improve that. My issues in writing could be seen as all right with a descriptivist point of view but for academic writing, or just writing for school, I do need to improve in those areas. I perceive that by reading and writing more I could improve the issues I had in my research paper. Mr Tangen's comments were very accurate in my opinion and helped me see where I need to improve. 

The Validity of Ideas

In the few chapters that I’ve read of Reality Hunger, Shields has begun to question what is plagiarism and whether we really should abstain from using others’ ideas. The whole structure of the book uses others’ work for his creation and he progressively (or the fragments he uses) talks more about what copying means. In chapter “D” he quotes, “When I worked at a newspaper, we were routinely dispatched to ‘match’ a story from the Times: to do a new version of someone else’s idea. But if we had ‘matched’ any of the Times’s words… it could have been a firing offense.” Shields shows that we are always using others’ ideas no matter what. Even if you are some type of genius, your knowledge has its roots in what other people have thought or discovered. Shields asks, if we are using others’ ideas, then why is it so wrong to use their words? Any work, as Reality Hunger shows, needs information or allusions from other works or people.

Chapter “D” was interesting because it dealt with memoirs, a genre we’ve discussed in class. Shield criticizes memoirs as they are accounts of information. Everyone in the US does them and becomes famous with them. He points out that we shouldn’t try to “frame reality” as even people who write about themselves make up things. Basically he says that all language is rhetorical so we should not look at it in such a restricting way.

JT Leroy

While reading the book I thought it was interesting that not even a person’s ideas are “OK” if they’re not properly presented, according to social standards. Shields mentions JT Leroy several times, and in one point refers to him as a hoax. I looked him up and found out that Jeremiah Terminator Leroy was a pseudonym for Laura Albert, an American writer. Leroy made public appearances and even signed documents, making everyone believe that he was an actual person that wrote in The New York Times, but as soon as Laura Albert was exposed, everyone began attacking her and she was even convicted of fraud. I found this interesting as it shows how superficial society can be with copyrights. It doesn’t actually matter whether Albert or Leroy wrote the articles. What should matter are the new ideas, if she had any, found in her writing. Society shouldn’t limit creativity by having compulsive rules because they destroy the development of literature and knowledge.