(RE)PROGRAMMING CREATIVITY
Reviewing Definitions (Developed over the semester)
Wonders are things that we decide to attach to--they are not polished, or framed, or corrected, rather they are raw materials and ideas that spark a feeling of astonishment or admiration while at the same time presenting themselves with a certain quality that invites a personal curiosity and question. These are things that we attach to, we are doing the act of seeking out and seeing for ourselves.
Interests are attached to us--by our own hand. These things are worn or displayed in the ways we want them to be perceived. We arrange/position/situate them in ways that instigate the responses we want. Our interest flags a feeling of availability for this use, a potentially useful answer. Interests belong to us in the ways and shapes we allow them to. In this way, we are doing the seeing for other people--inviting attention from others only to the things we want them to see (usually being the things we already know): "Don't you find that interesting?" (This definition, Dr. Guerra reminds us, is indebted to Sianne Ngai in Our Aesthetic Categories.)
← We display what we understand of ourselves--our interests do the work of painting our character for other people to see--for others to see us how we wish to be seen. In this sense interest is (or can be) captured and defended. We display our interests because we know how to/can defend them and we expect that we will have to. Opposingly, wonders are not necessarily displayed, rather they are held within, not to be displayed without protection (or in some cases not at all) because we don't know how to defend them. They challenge us.
Thinking about one of our short stories in the course, George Saunders constructed a directing character in "Winky"--Tom Rodgers--who preached neither interest or wonder as being important. The construction of Tom Rodgers' character and the self-help seminar completely disregards what it means to ponder the imaginative. It sidesteps the questioning of both wonder and interest, in favor of only neatly contained answers to the "problem" of others. "Winky" then follows Neil's (a participant in the seminar) downfall, as he could not positively carry himself without regard to the things and lives that aren't his.
This demonstrates the danger of a single story or answer. There is a dependency upon multiple stories becoming intertwined, harmonies. Our relationship (to people, things, culture, societies, etc.) determine the types of questions we ask. It is dangerous to stop asking (i.e., losing interest), but also to stop questioning how we ask and how we might ask more (i.e., losing wonder).
With Time Flowing in Only One Direction → Conclusion: Dark Wonder
In his novel Lincoln in the Bardo, our final fiction in the course, Saunders manifests historical citations into ghosts. Ghosts in the Bardo speak citations, they are unwilling to admit that they are dead and exist in the Bardo--somewhere between alive and dead. In the Bardo, these characters (histories) physically reflect the things that occupied their minds when they were alive. They remain in the Cemetary as a collection of the dead, each hanging onto some position of the truth, though they all have differing accounts of what they see in the Bardo/history (e.g., the moon, Lincoln sobbing/ not sobbing). A recorded account of a historical event remains unwavering regardless of other evidence. That individual's original account may be proven incorrect, but was expressed at one point to be the truth. It's value as evidence is different than its value as fact. When a ghost in Saunders's story (a citation) admits that the are dead, they pass on like a bloom of matter light: "the matterlightblooming phenomenon." (New illuminations become possible, but some voice is lost in the effort?)
A final metaphor emerges that links ENG 362's work with texts, genres, containers, and materials: It is our engagement with the dead, or the histories that we have never touched, that ultimately brings in new voices. If we act toward history in ways we never have (as Lincoln had done with his son) we could do the work of arranging it in ways that it has never been seen, understand the wonders. It is the things that we didn't pay attention to that lead us to a sense of stuckness when they come back up. This stuckness means that we are doing some work. It is here that we realize that our wundertopfs are too small. We must do the work of first understanding our wonder before we can attempt to explain it's existence.