Ever Feel Like Dropping Out?

I have this crazy cousin. Every once in a while he totally freaks out, checks himself into the nut house, relaxes, and then check himself out. Every time they give him new medication. I wonder more if he just checks out of society because it is so fucked up. Is it really him that is crazy? Or is it the rest of us who go on day after day pretending we’re okay. I envy him sometimes. He is real.

Then there are these friends of mine–the homeless ones–who asked today how Becky is doing with her new job. Joe, who misses Becky and the dogs and wants to know if we can come by on Saturday just because he misses them. For no other reason–he just wants to see the dogs and Bec. Joe, who fed six people yesterday because the food pantries in Muncie are out of food. Why can’t we all see what is going on? Why do I feel like so many times people who we all think are freaks are the ones who know what is really going on? What life is really about?

I worry about deep critical readings of Victorian texts in hopes that somehow my reading of a one hundred plus year old book will change society. I appreciated one my professor’s candor the other day, when she shared about her experience with Titanic the movie. She was more moved by the fact that nothing has changed. The poor people died on the Titanic, because there weren’t enough lifeboats. The poor people died in New Orleans because there still aren’t enough “lifeboats.” Why in almost a hundred years has nothing changed. She wondered out loud, what is the purpose in all of this? Are we changing anything?

I wonder, will all of my work in school, in a hundred years, have changed anything? What is the purpose in all of this?