I sometimes do. Usually if it's a practice of a cultural or violent nature that I abhor, which stems largely from how I read ('fiction') the rest of the time - with abandon. Post-college, post-Christian years, I had a harder and harder time separating the representative from the real: a painting of violence was entirely too much, even if just symbolic. I lost most interest in horror movies, grim humor was best of the Tim Burton sort. It's because I would personalize it too much - it would be me - or worse - someone I loved who (could) be depicted in whatever form, and this was further emphasized when I began accept more about my racial background in my mid-20's. I had received a bundled package of criticism and theory and sent into the literary world, expecting to be able to sort it out, or at least use my own lens to appreciating what I read.

Since I have a tendency to reach for extremes, I lost sight of the intent of these things: they were tools, not reality...a lens at best. From Baudrilliard to Barthes to Sartre to Alan Bloom - the smartest of them knew they were providing an angle, not the whole picture, and even if they weren't aware of it, it remains true. As I reentered Good Reading, I began to notice that not only were they blind people feeling different parts of the elephant, they were kind enough to include footnotes stating so explicitly.





Wait...you don't like cake?