Chloe+H's+OpEd+Article

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=Being in the Book.= By Chloe H

I used to be creative. Really creative. When people around me saw dreary hallways with white never ending halls I saw a world of imagination. My mind would take a paint brush and slash across the white with a victorious ‘ha’ as the boring color was vanquished. Yet, that part of me seems to be dying. I used to see a world of opportunity, now all I see are stereotypes and fixed paths. I used to see tigers hiding on my hikes, now all I see are small rocks that can’t even hide lizards. I was always known when I was a freshman, even a sophomore, that I had one of the most bizarre and abstract thinking in my classes. When other people twiddled their thumbs in ninth grade writing in their journals, I would have already filled five pages about how I was feeling, not to mention the actual assignment. When people would glance at the required reading and skim the pages to get to the point, I would go into that world and experience it. At night I used to crawl into my bed with a flashlight and read these stories forcing myself into the world among the other characters. I was with Pi on the boat. I was with Uncle Tom when he died. I cried with characters, laughed with them like old friends, but now I can’t even find them. My edge has seemed to disappear.

The time I used to spend laughing with queens and dueling with dragons, I now find I use to complete homework assignments or catch up on sleep. I used to read thick novels full of monsters, betrayal, gypsies, forbidden love… now I can’t even find the joy in it. I’m not sure if this is just me growing up or losing apart of myself, but I’m scared. I miss being able to curl in a little ball and sit there for hours and think about nothing but living on the land among Indians. I miss dreaming about being able to just spread my arms flap them lightly and be among the clouds. For creativity being a so called, “never ending river…” it seems to be drying up and I am not the only suffering from this.

As I have watched my friends, as well as fellow AP students, I can’t help but see a decline in actually learning from novels. I know, we all read the book (or at least spark noted or asked a friend before class), but are we actually reading the book? I have seen people annotate and dissect books until the highlighted markings and annotated text almost engulf the entire piece of literature itself. Even though for some of us this is habit, after you complete it, do you feel like you know anything more about the characters? I have always wanted to do this simple thing to see if people understood what they were reading. I would want them to act it out. I would want them to act like Candy from Abarat, more than a bit frightened about the sea coming to her hick town home. I would want to see if you could actually sit and have tea with the Mad Hatter after Alice would take her leave. I bet you couldn’t. You wouldn’t survive. We need to put ourselves in these novels with these characters. We need to go a little out of our way to shut our logic up and ask it to stay quiet for ten minutes.

Over this last weekend I discovered something amazing. Hidden in my bookshelf pressed against the wall; I found a book series from my pre high school days. As I gazed at the cover and saw the main characters eyes glancing back at me; I suddenly wanted to read it. It wasn’t really even a want. It was a necessity. As I ran along with him and his co parts, felt his emotions and dueled with his foes. I was living in his world for a few solitary moments, but then it came back. That haunting wretched feeling of not being able to find the joy in it. Of my creativity that was putting me by their side shutting down and my logic jumping right back in saying that it was impossible. I hate that moment. I hate the moment when logic is introduced to any superfluous creation that my mind has contrived for me with the help of a book.

I love to read still. I do every night and I'm starting to find the fun again. Writing this is even spurring up more old emotions and remembrances of sitting chatting with these 'imaginary friends' than I thought it would. I can't wait to figure out what happens to Ferras Vansen and my sweet friend Barrick. I guess I get to go and live in this world again. I only hope that others, if they haven't lost it, can find it too and if you never have looked for it, to take a daring leap. It doesn't even have to be required reading, any reading can do.


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