“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
James Baldwin, The Doom and Glory of Knowing Who You Are, Life Magazine, May 24, 1963.
This is my favorite quote from James Baldwin and it has resonated with me so deeply since the first time I read it. Although Baldwin was having a larger conversation about the role of artists in our society and I don’t necessarily consider myself an artist or creative, I connect with these words because reading has given me so much in this world. Like Baldwin, books have given me words for what I previously thought was singular to me and undefinable. Anyone that knows me knows that I love reading and writing and I will likely always surround myself with books in some fashion.
The aforementioned quote continues with Baldwin characterizing the artist as a “spiritual historian” whose role is to “make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are”. While reading has provided me a pathway to freedom (spiritual, mental and physical) from the bonds that are placed on so many of us, especially our minds, sometimes I focus more on the doom rather than the glory of who and what I am. At times I find myself wondering if ignorance truly is bliss and if I would be happier with myself if I knew a little less about how the world works. This shows up as me rejecting certain experiences because I know how people who inhabit similar bodies as mine are treated by others. Even though knowledge has allowed for so much personal growth and development, I sometimes let that knowledge turn into fear.
It’s strange, choosing to live freely because I know that the pain and violence I have experienced from others and the world at large is not my own fault yet simultaneously limiting myself for the same reasons. This has been on my mind lately as I’ve been in a rut that I’ve been struggling to get out of for the past few months. Depression and anxiety aren’t new for me and they’ve been with me since I was a child but now, I question how I can have all the words for what is causing this most recent state and still feel so immobile.
I don’t really have much to say but ultimately, I will always choose to reject ignorance and to think/learn about how I and others take up space and move through this world. I believe everyone should read more because I know what it has done for me. At the same time I recognize the difficulty that comes with choosing what to do with new information. It’s not an easy road.
Not an Easy Road – Buju Banton
Unruly Bodies 