Proust: True paradises are paradises lost

“Yes: if, owing to the work of oblivion, the returning memory can throw no bridge, form no connecting link between itself and the present minute, if it remains in the context of its own place and date, if it keeps its distance, its isolation in the hollow of a valley or upon the highest peak of a mountain summit, for this very reason it causes us suddenly to breathe new air, an air which is new precisely because we have breathed it in the past, that purer air which the poets have vainly tried to situate in paradise and which could induce so profound a sensation of renewal only if it had been breathed before, since true paradises are the paradises we have lost.” – Marcel Proust Through memory and re-experiencing old memories in new contexts, we can visit those paradises again and again, but you can never stay for long. Oblivion makes paradise sweet and possible. Oblivion and paradise are not opposites – both exist, are necessary and make life so complex and sometimes wonderful.

Literature: Exercising the Imagination

One thing I love about literature, one thing that might be unique to literature, is that it forces the reader to imagine and view the world form a different perspective. Fiction forces belief and emotional connection to a world that is created from the imagination, vision and beliefs of another person. By believing and imagining this world, a similar mental journey is taken by the author and reader, and the reader becomes a unique combination of their own imagination and the thoughts and imaginings of someone else. This does not mean the reader adopts the beliefs of the writer, but some kind of alteration will occur to someone who has been so deeply exposed to something so powerful and personal. It is growth. It is change. Self-discovery and experience gained through the exercise of the imagination. Literature is the unique and personal imagination and vision of one concentrated into their fingers, gripping a pen or hovering over keys slowly being forced into the form of sentences. Forms may not be the same as the original imagination, but they allow the reader to create a new world unimagined by the writer. Each book is an infinite world and minds take one of those worlds and populate it with their own imaginings influenced by other books. The simple act of reading literature forces the reader into a metamorphosis, and after each book the reader is a new person, a stranger, even to themselves.