Is literature a boring subject?

Hello everyone,

I am a literature student. I have been asking this to myself for a long time and I never got any solid answers. This is probably why I chose to write a post about this topic. I like to consider myself as a lucky fool. Because, I love reading and at the same time I hate myself for loving it so much. Reading transports any good reader into a new world inside their minds. This is why I separate myself from books. I think that there is a life out there which cannot be understood by reading alone. So I write this post to let everyone, who wants to take literature as a subject for study or enjoyment, to know about the problems you might face.


These are the problems that a literature student gets into:


The first problem you will face when taking up literature would be loneliness. When you want to be a literature student, literally or theoretically, you will have to work when others sleep. You will have to love what other people call boring. You will be called lame, if you are good at this (Unless you win a Nobel Prize for Literature). There would be no friends other than some geeks. This is one reason that I started to space myself from books after a limit. I did not want my friends to think that I am a geeky weirdo. 

Believe it or not, the second thing you will face/become would be a patient of ‘obsessive-compulsive disorder.’ Everybody knows what it is, but I’ll explain it briefly. It is an anxiety disorder caused by intrusive thoughts that produce fear, repetitive thoughts, worry etc. They are obsessed with things like reading, cleaning, parenting etc. Basically it is not intense and not like a disorder in this case. In this scenario, you will have to read something like hell to understand it. If you are a serious reader who reads, like, 200 or 300 pages everyday, then you will develop this disorder. (Most of my old friends had this.) They simply sit in a library and try to figure out the meaning of a poem or a novel by re-reading it again and again. 

If my experiences serves me right, then the most important crisis you will get yourselves into is the choice of friends. You will never get the right friends to party. Your choice will be clouded by you false humility and overrated morality from your books. You also tend to develop an awkward sense of beauty. (Mostly because you do not get many dates being a gentleman.) You might not agree with this, then I say you’re not the reader-critic type and you should not take literature seriously. Take this seriously, Literature is basically for love-deprived, foolish and crazy people. 


You might think that there are people out there who love literature and at the same time party hard. But the hard truth is there aren’t any. If a man is truly literature-material, then he will never blend in with the way of the world. Basically, literature is like an art of escapism. People that falls into this category thinks that they are above everything or everyone else, and that they are somehow redeemed from all the sins in this world because they write about it. I do not mean to offend anyone.


There are some advantages as well.

For example, you will be liked as someone who can be relied in terms of empathy. In other words, you can understand people better than anyone else. You will see the patterns and consequences of your own actions and act rationally and smartly. Because you study literature and if you are a geek you will probably get a good job, and you will not end up with a foolish partner. Think about it, you will be a perfect guy to live with. A true  academic never tends to be a violent guy and he will never hurt others. In college and school, the most fan following would be for literature and art. There might be a cult following for a rock band, but still in the end the girls will end up with a good guy. 

The second one is empathy. The more sensitive you are, the more philosophical you make yourself to be. If you are sensitive and cannot tolerate things you see, then this is the subject for you. As I have said earlier, most poets and novelists are sensitive to everything ranging from corruption to the sufferings of people. They escape from this using their creativity. Empathy enables you to know about others’ feelings as if you are in their shoes. If you are not high on empathy then you are absolutely not this material. In other words you would be a crybaby in others’ perspective.

The third and last good thing is an elegant bond with friends. I said earlier that friends are not a luxury a geek gets. But in my experience, a good creative reader gets good friends. The bond between them would be very good. But the problem is that ‘they are still geeks, nothing but geeks.’ They talk about nothing, they do not party, they are crazy guys. But in the end, they help each other in need like true friends. It’s just that if you take literature and study it well, you will get lonely and your friends group would only be down two or three members. 


In the end, being a literature student is good. But I have decided not to let it get to my head. I am not a geek but I like reading. I take my space from it as soon as I feel I am missing out too much fun. Remember, literature is not like another subject you can just ‘study’ from textbooks. There is no limit for textbooks in this subject. You have to read and write as much as you an, if you want to be a good student (Theoretically or literally).


I hope you had fun reading this and you will think about this before going for this subject. Thank you!


Goodbye! 


(Courtesy:en.wikipedia.org)

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