My final presentation.

Throughout the semester Dr. Sexton has offered us many fine sayings like “How do you know what you think till you read what you write?” and “There are no boring books only boring people,” but it was his desire for us to develop a “Tragic Sense of Life” that most captivated me. I feel it is this key phrase that pulls the ties together to make this class a complete experience. It is more than just another lesson to be taught and forgot among the crumpled notes of yesteryear. It is the center piece that combines everything we have learned and helps us to understand what it is to be human. What this class has taught me over the semester is that we all go through exceptional hardships in our lives but it is this common tragedy that encompasses all of us and causes us to relate to each other despite our differences. This has helped to make me a much more interesting person and accepting person.
What does it mean to have a tragic sense of life? Well we have all experienced tragedy at some point in our lives whether it was your little brother stealing the last slice of pizza at dinner or your significant other deciding she’s happier with someone else. The point is that it’s universal and inescapable. Even if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth you are destined to die with everything else. Tragedy is a tricky and sometimes dangerous subject though. It is easy to get caught up in feeling sorry for yourself and pondering the “Why me?” of the situation but it is much more difficult to accept the change in your life and move on. Many times I have lain awake and wondered what I did to deserve some of the things that have been done to me. I have run through scenarios a thousand times over in my head after I’ve experienced them, questioning, “What I could have done different?” Once you are stuck in this mindset that the world is a terrible place you can become trapped and it can be incredibly difficult to work out. The point is not to dwell on these tragedies but to grow from them. It is only after we have risen from the ashes of failure that we can get a good view of the world again.
It may seem contradictory to have this perspective and still be full of love and admiration for life but there are people that excel at it. Alyosha is a prime example; he has come to terms with the tragedies of life and has become a better person because of it. He is surrounded by the atrocious sins of his family and yet still he finds love for every one of them. Despite the blame that could be laid on his father for his own mother’s grief stricken death, Alyosha tries to save him. Even when Dmitri threatens Old man Karamazov’s life Alyosha empathizes with the sadness and torment in his brother’s soul. The young boy that bites Alyosha’s finger gets no violent or angry retort but merely a confused and gentle inquiry as to his motives. It seems nobody can surprise or upset Alyosha because he was born into a tragedy. His earliest memory is being torn from his mother by a nurse while she was hysterically sobbing and offering him to the Mother of God. He remembers being clutched so hard by his mother that it hurt and the look on her face as “frenzied but beautiful.” These words betray a profound sense of understanding in his character. He knows that no one on this earth suffers alone. He knows this and decides to make it his mission to alleviate just a little of the suffering of others. While Alyosha does this by joining a monastery others find more creative ways.
I cannot claim to have such a complete understanding of this lesson as Alyosha does but I know I am capable if I just continue to open myself up to other people. Instead of immediately shutting out someone because of judgments I’ve passed on their lives I can learn from them. I am willing to hear out tales of incredible sadness because it gives me a more defining view of the person before me. Everyone has a story to tell and some are worse than others but we all have an equal responsibility to listen and learn. It is the tragedies in our lives that give way to the opportunities to become heroes. Without them we would have a much harder time of growing, changing, or learning. This class has helped me to recognize that and I am thankful. This year has been especially hard on me and I have been at a loss for how I feel about the world. I explained in a blog entry about my ex leaving me but I left out many details. I left out the fact that I encouraged her to spend time with the guy because I was being suffocated as her only friend. I could not describe the plethora of emotions I felt the day she told me she wanted to “go on a break” or the subsequent week of hell that followed as she drifted further and further into someone else’s arms. She was a girl I had moved thousands of miles and devoted almost three years of my life for and it all amounted to nothing. The easy days were the angry and sad ones because I could just talk about them with someone and feel better. The real tragedy lay in the days full of confusion or apathy. What do you say when you just don’t know? How do you explain just wanting to give up? I was and still am quite lost but things are getting better. I have found solace in the comfort of The Brothers Karamazov and in writing about how I feel. Honestly, what has helped more than anything though is to tell myself that I am not the only person this has happened too. I find comfort in knowing that throughout time my story has been experienced over and over and over again. I am not the only person to feel this pain and confusion. I won’t be the last.
So, all in all, I am confident in my growing development of a tragic sense of life. We all possess this ability because it is built into the human condition and it is one of the few things that sets us apart from other animals. We are all born to lives of tragedy but it is up to us to understand what that means. It is only with this understanding that we can truly come to love and respect all that life is.