local anon · 2mo
omg, thank you so much for your thorough response!! (eloquent mesmerised anon here who also happens to be one of your students but hush hush!)
This isn't an ask but thank you for your answer! I was also told I don't understand/ don't speak properly so it had the opposite effect on me sadly where I thought books were for smart people and only recently started picking up literature (to my surprise it's been extremely fun, even though it still stings when people I open up to about it say "you gotta have an open mind reading this" like.. okay whatever, I'll be silly and find it funny and fun instead). A list my bookworm friend made recently had shakespeare in it, funnily enough Hamlet and I know you like this one a lot so it made me laugh a little when I saw. I look forward reading it when the time comes!)
My will to learn to express better came sadly from wanting to have a right to have an opinion about my own feelings so it's been an uphill battle. What your father said is extremely challenging but also I find very kind and heartwarming. You're a gem, Chira. Thanks again!
Please remember art is for the common man. Books are not for smart people, they're for everyone.
Shakespeare is a great example of this. These days people consider his works to be for the sophisticated and the educated, but his works were literally made for the every day peasant and full of dick jokes. Don't ever fall for the notion that art is for the elite, art is for humanity.
There's no right way to enjoy art, because art is about your relationship to the piece or text or media in your own specific context and what you relate to personally. You have to approach art with the understanding that your experience and context of your life of it is valid, and art will meet you were you are if you do.
I'll also tell you something else, the idea of 'smart people' is bullshit. Everyone's an idiot, and if someone thinks they aren't then that means they're a bigger idiot than normal. So if whatever you're engaging with seems out of your league, it's either because a) you're being gaslit into not examining whatever it is with closer scrutiny and letting yourself be conned, or b) you're talking to a bigger moron than you.
As I said in the previous answer -- my father saying a great educator is someone who can make a complex subject accessible to a 5 year old. Which means that if a 5 year old can't understand it, the person talking to them either doesn't understand anything they're saying or they think there's a hierarchy of who deserves information.
'The little foolery that wise men have,' as the bard says.
