Books can’t take the place of personality

When I first read “The Catcher in the Rye,” in seventh grade, I did so hoping to find someone… When I first read “The Catcher in the Rye,” in seventh grade, I did so hoping to find someone I could become. I was a boy in search of an identity. I had heard good things about Holden Caulfield – that he was interesting and people could relate to him – so I creased the first page and anxiously awaited the poetic insights that would allow me to better understand myself and act accordingly.

I took my venture seriously and grew cynical as I tried to imitate that boy whose sister accused him of “never enjoying anything.” And then, after reading the end, I realized that Holden Caulfield, though literary and mysterious, was not the best person to look up to if I wished to be happy.

My life went on like that for a while. I liked to be serious about things and searched for a ready-made mold of temperament and morality that I could slip into. I needed a rational paradigm for the world; a set of objective truths that could give me motivation towards something. I needed to assume a role.

I became deeply religious for a while, and that eventually gave way to the novels of Ayn Rand, which allowed me to be an ideological fool I’m almost embarrassed to remember, although it was nice to know everything.

It took me a long time to realize that my ideas and actions weren’t my own, nor did they apply to things as they really were. I didn’t see that my stark adherence to the identity I had chosen led to more drama than resolution, or that I was the puppet of the role I had assumed.

Most people don’t pick roles as encompassing as the ones I did. Most people tend to fragment themselves. They behave as a conservative toward this, a liberal toward that, a relativist here and a moralist there. They want to be this sort of boyfriend, that sort of daughter, this kind of partier and that type of student. Often, a person will define themselves with smaller roles, which are often adhered to even more dogmatically: “I will be the type of person that always keeps everything neat and tidy.” Or, “I won’t tolerate my boyfriend’s smoking.” Or, “I will be the person who is always happy and cheers other people up.” And it’s these little things that help fulfill our occasional, irrational, desire to be dramatic and ruin things.

Things work well for a while, but in the end, you find yourself sacrificing your own happiness to abide to the characteristics of your role.

Now, I guess all of this may seem like a bad pep talk from a high school guidance counselor: “Johnny, don’t worry about being like anyone else. Just be yourself.” But I’ve been trying to get to something deeper than that.

We all like to have a purpose; to feel like we’re adhering to something greater than ourselves. And assuming a role, or any sort of dogma – whether it be Christianity, liberalism or just trying to be tidy – can help us to do that. But more often than not, it only leads to frustration and drama. We take ourselves so seriously that we get worked up about things and fail to question why.

This isn’t a call to the phonies of the world. It’s meant more as a plea against any sort of dogma. Because no good can come when you begin to view an abstract truth or idea of what you should be as more important than the circumstances before you.

So, forget yourself and lighten up.

“Good and bad, I defined these terms, no doubt, so sure, somehow. But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” -Bob Dylan. Questions, comments, insights or suggestions? WMinton@pittnews.com