To Have a "Should"

As an English: Creative Writing major at a liberal arts college, the upper division English courses (both literature and creative writing) tend to have some pretty amazing discussions.  This is in part because my fellow students are fantastically bright individuals-- I never would have considered myself, my goals, and my life the way I do if not for their insight.  Another reason is that our classes do not have 300 students sitting in a lecture hall.  This semester, one of my favorite classes is turning out to be Greek Mythology, taught by one of the most mind-blowing professors I've ever had the pleasure to converse with.  Often, as I walk out this class with one of my close friends, I am still trying to wrap my mind around the concepts we just spent an hour and fifteen minutes discussing-- and not because of their irrelevance!! Rather, it is because the concepts that our professor is taking the time to introduce (and, as this is the third class I've taken of his, the time to reiterate) relates to everything:  Greek Mythology, theories of literature, psychoanalysis, social norms, relationships, everything right up to the reason we tell stories and live the way we do.

So many great quotes have come from this class.  Here are a few:

"Mortality makes human life precious."

"What is a dragon but a woman with wings?"

"Laughter happens at the moment that you've just saved yourself from the abyss...it happens at the expense of pity...it is the human expression of being freed from a social/emotional expectation."

and my personal favorite--

"Humans are different than other animals because we have a should."

We have a should.  I can explain the other quotes in a few short sentences,* but the magnitude of this last one struck me to the core when my professor said it in class last week.  We have a should- the concept that things are supposed to be a certain way, a norm that when broken, has the potential to wreck our world because we hold so much store for this little word, should.  We should not care about money, we should marry for love, we should chase our dreams as crazy as they may be, we should never give up, and we should always strive to be ourselves. 

All of these shoulds are serious considerations as I enter week four of my last semester in undergrad.  What are my dreams?  Where do I want to go?  What do I really want to do?  Who do I want to be at my side as I go through life and "fulfill" my dreams? 

Disney does a wonderful job telling us ladies when we're little what we should want in a partner and that love is always most important.  When we get in the real, grown-up world, we realize those sets of expectations are unrealistic (I'm still hoping my Prince Charming will ride up on a beautiful white horse and take me away to my horsey haven where money doesn't matter and all of my to-be novels are instant best-sellers!).  Having recently experienced the annoying truth that, as my Spanish professor said in class Monday, "Love is always temporary," I've come to the conclusion that our should, with relation to this topic, causes more problems than the number of secret princesses it saves.   (I'm not hating on Disney, by the way-- I love all of those classic fairytales.  And I love Brave with all my heart!)

What about the other shoulds though?  Where should I live after graduation in December?  What the hell should I do for a career?  Should I go for the place that gives me the most money (the American Dream, people!) or the place that makes me happiest?  These are the questions I'm considering as I decide where I plan to go from little Shepherd University in December.  And so the lists of pros and cons begin. 


*In Greek Myth, the gods were fascinated with humans because they were mortal- they were able to take risks and those risks meant something because it could end their lives- unlike the gods who were mortal.  Also, women were associated with the earth and serpents in Greek society (Read Anne Carson's "Putting her in her Place:  Woman, Dirt, and Desire" in order to understand the logic of the Greek men) while men were associated with birds.  A dragon, a serpent with wings, was seen as a woman elevated to man's status-- a great threat to the patriarchal society.  Finally, laughter was a topic of discussion when considering what jokes, stories, myths, and pity are and their associations with one another.