Fries and algorithm

Yo, nerd alert!

I loved studying poetry and literature in college. nnI’m grateful to have been educated in an era when such things were valued. I work at Buena Vista University and in my job as archivist, it was a joy to discover that one of our past presidents highly regarded the liberal arts. Years ago, Keith Briscoe wrote captains of industry to ask their thoughts about hiring such majors.

The corporate presidents who responded said they would welcome a well-read, articulate young person in the world of business. Those responses occurred at the twilight of the liberal arts, just as technology was about to burst into everyone’s life with desktop  computers, followed by the internet.

In its time, my alma mater — a small, private college not unlike BVU — had a robust English department. At the end of the 2022-2023 academic year a student could no longer major in literature there. Many of us English alumni mourned.

Big deal!

Good riddance!

What a worthless major!

 “You want fries with that?”

Today, students and their parents expect career preparation in college because that’s what the world now demands. One of the results is that students read far less.

They still read, but it’s likely to be something light or texts from friends or family. And they watch posts and videos from influencers who draw them in. “Come see my life. Look upon your own and despair.”

We humans are wired to look, to always look for something beyond this finite entity called the self, to fill the void. Lighting on an image is a siren call. It draws us in.

Words, on the other hand, are work. Our brain must conjure the image. Big words and new thoughts are hard work. Big words can make us angry. We don’t want to wrestle with a story that demands concentration. We don’t want to trip over words we’ve never seen before. We don’t want to grapple with foreign ideas.

I want to say to young people: When so confronted, stay with it. Enter the dark forest of the daunting syllabus. Cut through the thicket of hundreds of required pages. It’s easier than ever to look up a strange word. You don’t even have to get out of your chair.

You just might be transformed or transported along the way. You might emerge from the difficult class a new creature, seeing the world as though for the first time. Take a chance!

This can be a lot to ask the risk-averse young, and I sympathize. I was not one of those can-do type kids. I was riddled with self-doubt and had almost no self-confidence. My only saving grace was that I had a deep hunger to learn. And that, like Robert Frost’s fork in the road, made all the difference.

Let’s just say it, shall we? Technology is a devil. It is smooth and cool and easy in ways that wading through a text can never be.

It’s not that I or my peers were better. We were just deprived of that particular devil. We were thrown back on our own devices.

What an ironic turn of phrase.

In our day, being thrown back on our own devices meant hanging out, screwing around, getting into a little trouble. It meant climbing things like arches and flag poles and cramming a dozen people into a Volkswagen Beetle.

I often marvel that we had so much time to write letters, build Homecoming floats, sew clothing, can food. Days stretched out for what seemed like, well, days. But now, we too have given our souls to that devil. We throw ourselves at our devices just like the kids do.

Now, we descend rabbit holes that lead to underground cities. When we resurface, a whole afternoon has vaporized in a haze of perfect families on perfect vacations. What remains is a tech hangover and a pounding case of envy. 

For me, a green goo attaches to my organs, and failure coats my tongue. I look around and all I see is a ratty couch and a ratty dog. I am a person under the influence of the image.

Some of this is not new; we are always being influenced. My grandmother listened to Kitchen Klatter, which told her how to bake a perfect cake. My mother had Better Homes and Gardens’ glossy photos of perfectly glazed hams. Seventeen magazine’s layouts showed perfectly coiffed girls with perfectly straight smiles.

Honestly, one might argue that writers are influencers, too, but I didn’t hate my life after reading Madame Bovary or The Old Man and the Sea. I was entertained, transported even. An alchemy occurred, whose origin was murky and whose end might remain hidden for years.

I was still me but also not me. I was enlarged in ways one might not detect but that were real nonetheless. It was an experience devoid of monetization and followers. There was no algorithm to judge my success at being human.

Thankfully, I’ve learned that the green goo can be shed with fortitude. I lift my eyes to what’s real. My couch is comfortable; it just needs a throw, and my dog is loving; he just needs a haircut. What’s more, the sunset is glorious, and the trees are starting to bud.

When I see young people bent over their phones, I don’t blame them, but I mourn the loss of their youth and hopefulness and how a devil took it.

After writing this, Joan Zwagerman realizes that she needs to read a lot more. A LOT more.