Self-Discovery through Steinbeck

I finished East of Eden tonight. Oh, John Steinbeck, how you read so clearly. When I can't seem to fit the words to my thoughts, you write them exactly so. When I am frustrated with my sense of place, you have such words of wisdom for me. I guess we are all in some internal struggle, some unsolved riddle. Steinbeck brings troubling issues out for me, so I can stare at them in the open for hours and wonder why they exist. No, wonder why I can't presently solve them.

The worst part are the contradictions. Wanting to succeed with no motivation to do so. Wanting love with no desire to attach or commit myself. It is as though I'm waiting for someone to come smack me upside the head and say, "Snap out of it!" Maybe I'm just waiting for myself?

This age is the worst, for everyone. Steinbeck says, "I am writing it not because I think my experience was unique; quite the contrary." He suspects that we have all had much the same experience -- "at least parallel experiences." he says. It feels to me to be an age where we want to figure out what path to take, but haven't had enough experiences to understand why that path is the one to take. It is so frustrating, so exhausting. I often wish of asking what Gen of the Future want me to do, and do only that... I suppose that produces a paradox because the Gen of the Future is a creation of the wrong paths and choices and right paths and choices of the Gen of Today. Sigh, this literature class and its paradoxical philosophy must be getting to me.

At least I'm figuring some stuff out, I think, I hope. That's all I could really wish for at this point.

"Timshel!"