Today in class we read a story of a blind man teaching an ignorant man the ways of life. It was clear that Mr. Sexson really liked the story's moral: in order to fully understand a story or experience, one must interact and fully understand it instead of getting snippets or "morals of the story". You can't skim the Brothers Karamazov and expect to learn anything from it. You can't pull up a Spark Notes summary of it and expect to ace the test. Supposedly. Unfortunately our society is growing with increasingly shorter attention spans and morals of the story seem to be the major parts of stories that people are remembering. We can have the saying of "don't fly to close to the sun" or "don't let the cat out of the bag" without having to read the stories because it's a simplified version for short-attentioned zombies to understand. Don't fly to close to the sun means: don't overdo whatever you're doing.
I wish I had a larger attention span and maybe if I force myself to read every chapter, every paragraph and every word of the Brothers Karamazov it will elongate it, but I find that may not be possible. For instance as I write this, I am thinking about visiting another website or catching up on some reading for another class. I am getting text messages as I write and it is taking all of my concentration to avoid these distractions in order for me to finish this post. These distractions haunt me and every other 21st century college student throughout the day and even more so when I read the 900 page behemoth that is The Brothers Karamazov.
Anyway, the moral of this post is that the battle between morals of stories and experiences through reading is a battle that is far from over.
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