Actuality vs Intellect

I wanted to talk about this specific section of chapter 19. Some of the rest of the chapter was interesting, but this one grasped my attention. What was interesting to me was the comparison of her dreams to her reality. And what she thinks about to try and make amends/ cope with what she is going through. Something that I also thought about was how we as people go through these same motions, to try to avoid or make better of our situation. Whether consciously or subconsciously we create this false reality, that eventually might turn into a delusion because of how much we try to convince ourselves that what we are thinking is true. Just to feel a sense of placement in our reality. If you make assumptions you leave immense room for imagination. That in itself can be detrimental. This mostly applied to my life when I was younger and still does. I was always a young and independent child. I was always put in positions to make myself as such, from riding septa alone at around the age of 6 to driving and having cars since I was 12. I encountered obstacles that many children my age weren’t thinking about. And with this independence came a lot of burden and responsibility. And it took a lot out of me from a young age. But I could never really grasp that because I thought it just came with growing up. But as I did get older I realized that it wasn’t and that I was going through things. Nevertheless, I still couldn’t understand it. And nevertheless, I still dont. It reached a point where it became my “identity” and I was “meant” to go through these struggles to build and shape who I was. “Maybe the life I think I’m living is a paranoid delusion” (pg.109), when I was younger I would’ve never formatted it this way and I still wouldn’t. But I would always say why me? Why can’t and or what can I do to create a better life? It was a constant battle between my mind and the reality that I continued to exist in. I would say to myself that it would get better trying to configure a different outcome of my situation, knowing that I had no control or power. And came up with dreams and aspirations that to a kid were in a metaphoric sense tangible. But in its reality was what it was, just a dream. “Sanity is a valuable possession”. The thing I like most about this quote is the direct connection to the text previous to it. They complement each other in just the correct way. And it makes sense, to be forced into a position that isn’t beneficial to your life and that brings nothing but hardship and tribulations deserves a space of comfort. And sanity is just the comfort that is needed. Without that, you’ll eventually lose yourself or the values in which you live. And you’ll just be a soul without life essentially. I was being complacent in a place that you aren’t content with. Struggling every day to create this persona of the person who you wish to be. This form of “sanity” I can also relate to. Not saying that I am crazy but just to have a word or phrase to describe your comfort has always been a good place to fall back on when you feel as though your reality is falling apart. My form of “sanity” was poetry. I always liked to think I was good with words, but I still somewhat do. So to me, poetry came naturally, mixing it with my emotions just added an extra component. It became my outlet for whatever was going on in my head and the things that I would create inside it. The symbolization of this section is profound in a sense, mostly because of the deep connections it can have to people and the text being in its authentic and original form. The things you can dissect from such a small amount of words or just comparing it to your life is what makes this section so divert. Also, the diversity that this text demonstrates is a prime example of the reflection and comparison of the creative mind and the realization of reality.