In order to discuss religious experiences during a class last week, my professor mentioned, as an example, that a few years ago the Virgin Mary appeared to a bunch of people in Wisconsin. The whole class burst out laughing. Of course, as it's clearly an absurd claim. I concurred with their response.
"Wisconsin?" someone asked. "She appeared to people in Wisconsin?"
"Why would she do that?" another asked. "Why would she go there?"
What? I thought. These people weren't laughing at the fact that the Virgin Mary had appeared. They were laughing at the fact that she chose to appear to people in Wisconsin, of all places.
I couldn't believe it. I was appalled, and the kids in the class were just laughing and laughing. "Hey," I finally shouted (beginning one of my few comments in the class so far this term). "I'm from Wisconsin." The laughter began to die. "So back off."
A little disappointed in myself for not defending my state a bit more eloquently, I slumped home after class. I needed to find some reasonable people with whom to share my angst and disbelief. The Virgin Mary. What? I couldn't believe what was going on. Where was I?
Sadly, as I entered my house, I felt the vibe (one I'm beginning to be able to smell before even walking inside). It was the vibe of theory. Someone was in there reading it, holding it in his hands, talking about it, not explaining it very well, applying it to novels and people and comparing it to other theory.
If not the literary theory, it was the political theory. Or maybe the philosophy. In the house where I live, the theory nerds reign supreme, and they love it. In fact, I think one of them -- an English major type writing a thesis that uses lots and lots of theory -- plays a little game with himself to see how many times he can use the word "theory" in a given day. He's a friend of mine who I sometimes want to punch in the face (but he's in the boxing club, so I don't).
Another one, this one a political-science/government type, has merely taken so many theoretical classes in the past few years that he can't help but speak in Kantian-Hegelian terms all of the time. All of the time. I feel pretty bad for this friend, as he's acknowledged his problem and can't escape. He's living in a theoretical hell and pulling the rest of us down with him.
So I knew as I entered my house that I couldn't mention the Virgin Mary or the philosophy of religion course. For something so related to the big questions of life, the presence of miracles, a need to believe or not believe and words like "philosophy" could only lead to theory. I kept it in my head and let the Virgin sit there, waiting for my skull to just bust open and let her out.
Sometimes, in order to combat this rational, analytic, theoretical environment (while still not thinking the Virgin strange for vacationing in my homeland), I like to pretend to be one of the creative types. I try to pretend that emotion and feeling and subjectivity and slight irrationality make the world more interesting, that writing creatively is so much more satisfying and real than writing critically (and theoretically).
I like to think that, while I may not succeed in the theoretical realm, I show promise in a creative one, where neuroses often mark the most brilliant. In fact, I was once told by a writing professor, "Well, you're neurotic enough to be a poet."
Perhaps one of the biggest compliments I'd ever received (I think), it was ruthlessly refuted earlier this term by another professor, who said, "Eh, not a poet. Maybe you're neurotic enough to be a novelist. We'll see." Then he contrasted my conventional use of traditional language to James Joyce's brilliantly invented languages. Great.
And thus I sit here, part of that mob of annoying students stuck somewhere between art and theory, trapped in these ivory towers of thought, afraid to either admit and commit to a dream or drop everything and do something fun.
Like bowling. You know, when I think about it, I don't understand why everyone is not bowling all of the time. It's one of the most purely fun and thrilling things in the world; you get to throw balls as hard as you can, the shoes are always exciting, there's nothing, nothing like that feeling of breaking 100 or even 200 points and there's no time for theory.
I want nothing more than to toss out the theory and take my swirling and stressed-out head (with that little Virgin Mary still sitting in it and waiting to bust out) to the bowling alley. Actually, I think the Virgin might kind of dig it too, especially since I hear she likes Wisconsin (and Milwaukee, she must know, is the Bowling Capital of the World).
