Look at the World: On Writing and Reading

A week ago, I came across a quote by Louise Glück on social media: “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.” These are the last two lines of her poem, “Nostos.” As with many quotations I read online, I inwardly nodded and thought, “Sounds right,” before scrolling on.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read this quote before (maybe more than once), but this time, something about it gnawed at me. My mind kept turning it over, and the more I thought about it, the more layers of meaning I found.

Most of the time, for most people, I suspect Louise Glück is absolutely right. As we get older, we stop truly looking at the world. We become busy, distracted, weary; we only notice the world when it confirms what we already believe.

If I name any group of people—gym teachers, or vegans, or sports car drivers—I’d bet that a rough image springs to your mind, an amalgamation of people you’ve encountered over the years (whether in real life, in conversations, or in media) and the resulting opinions you’ve formed.

The same thing happens with places. If I tell myself to think of a high school, the first image that comes to my mind is a blurry image of the set of Saved by the Bell—despite the fact that I wasn’t a particular fan of the show or that Bayside High looks nothing like the two high schools I actually attended. This week, when I looked up a photo of the Saved by the Bell set, I realized that my mental image wasn’t even correct! In my memory, Bayside High had green lockers, but in reality they were red. It turns out I’ve been walking around with the wrong high school stock image in my head for years.

While this is a silly (though true) example, it also demonstrates why it can be hard for adults to look—really look—at the world. Because once we start looking, we’re inevitably going to find things we’ve been wrong about. Looking at the world challenges our beliefs, memories, and assumptions—perhaps ones we’ve acted on for years. Looking at the world can be unsettling, painful, and exhausting. It can make us feel defensive, angry, and afraid. It’s far easier not to look. To simply keep our heads down, to keep scrolling, to stay in familiar territory where we know we won’t be challenged.

But writers don’t have this luxury. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the duty of writers, editors, and publishers to buck this trend. After all, great books aren’t filled with generic people, blurry events, and half-remembered places. Great books don’t just look closely at the world; they encourage readers to do so as well. To see that vegan, sports-car-driving gym teacher as a fully-formed person, with all their idiosyncrasies and contradictions, rather than as a one-dimensional cliché. To notice how a school’s locker doors squeak and how its overhead lights flicker in a way that would never be allowed on a set. To pay attention, even when it makes us uncomfortable. To care about people we’ve never met, communities we’ve never been a part of. To have empathy.

So, I’d like to thank Louise Glück for her wisdom, even as I hope that more of us can disprove her words. Let’s pay attention. Let’s read books that look at the world. Let’s write and publish books that look at the world. Even when we desperately want to change the world, we must keep looking.

Your Editor Friend,
Julie

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