Creating Our Own Reality

"But how can I be both vessel and contents?"

The level of control we have over our own reality is astounding to me. Ned created a reality for himself that contained some truth yet was not correct for that point in time. It was for him, but it wasn't for Grace Biswanger or Shirley Adams. Sometimes we create a reality that pleases us rather than one that necessarily reflects the current world around us. Arnold Friend did the same thing. He was on a mission, a conquest of sorts. Connie resisted him and he continued to convince himself (and Connie!) that his thoughts were reality until they became a reality. Of course, reality isn't necessarily permanently suppressed. At some point, Ned had to give in. "...for the first time in his life, he did not dive but went down the steps into the icy water" (737). He let go of delusion and felt a different reality, one that he had created but perhaps not the one he would have preferred.

Connie wanted to go with Arnold from the start. She was playing with him, "careful to show no interest or pleasure" (3), making him work a little harder to get him. She didn't know what he was going to say or how far Arnold was going to take it. She didn't realize at first that he was older because she didn't want him to be older. Once the signs of creepiness started showing, she was too far gone. She no longer felt she could resist. The singsong nature of his voice and the familiarity of it all drew her in. She knew his face,;"an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July" (2). We romanticize this feeling, this familiarity, this face. We make the faces of individuals into the one we hope to see. When we see it is different, we resist. And, eventually, we give in. 

When we get physically weak, we become mentally weakened. The mind and body are so very much related. As Ned gets tired from swimming, his thoughts return to a more realistic reality. He can no longer maintain the delusion. Up until the minute he gives in, however, he is convinced that the story in his head is what's real. It is, and yet it's wholeheartedly disregarding another part of reality altogether. When Connie is worn down from the banter with Arnold, her physiology changes. She feels separated from her body, from her self. Her panic gets physical. In that panic, she breaks down and gives in. The mind and spirit are so strong, yet at times have limitations themselves. 

 Doctors a the sanitarium attempted to record the man's thoughts and views of the world. They published his reality, calling it referential mania. How did they even come to understand his reality? Was he able to put it into words? Why did he share it? Why did this man think this way? If we have control over our reality, why did he simply not change it? What merit does mental illness hold? What does that term mean? Surely, this man is mentally ill. He's in a sanitarium, for crying out loud! But what about Ned? Surely he's delusional. Perhaps he has a mental illness. Or even Arnold! Is there a perversion illness? Is there something wrong with him that he is so insistent on having sex with this girl? Yet, we see this with men all the time. And people frequently evade reality and create their own to avoid hardship. We don't always see people who imagine a reality completely different from the one we consider "acceptable." We call these people schizophrenic. Crazy. Incapable of functioning. At first we think they are geniuses or of such a low mental capacity that they are incapable of living life on their own. They are mentally ill. 

We are all mentally ill. We are all mentally healthy. We are all different. Yet this class is entitled Tracings. We're looking for the similarities. I cannot deny they exist and perhaps even overwhelm literature and daily life. But what about those exceptions? What about that guy who believes that all of nature is watching and tracking and judging him? Throughout history, there are always the "crazy people." Surely they can be traced through time. But do they follow a common thread? Can you really trace them and their thoughts and behaviors, just as you can most other individuals? Do they belong in the same group because they are the same or simply because they are the same in that "the rest of us" don't understand them. And who's to say that I'm not one of them?