Who We Are

Is genre and what it could mean in relation to a person just a label, or does it have a deeper meaning? It’s easy to put labels on things and look at them purely for what they have to offer on the outside, but I think its fair to argue that there is a lot more value to people, and pretty much anything else, than just what appears on the surface. This deeper value comes from a vast many things, including where you come from and the culture you where brought up in. My mom always told me that there was no escaping the fact that I would eventually turn into her one day, as she would turn into my grandma someday too. This idea is reflected in Nancy Sommers “Here I Stand Writing”. In a lot of ways, I would be honored to turn into my mother but in other ways I value the fact that I am my own person and have worked very hard to be just that. It is very hard to break out of boxes that people put you in and to be a true reflection of who you are instead of what people expect you to be or their first impression of you. In his piece, “On Genres as Ways of Being” the author Paul Heilker goes into more detail about what genre could be described as, and that is as a way of being in the world. The question being, does genre describe an overall way of being—“who am I” or does it describe how you got to be the person you are at every moment in your life— “what has made me this way”? Or, in the world of literature, does appearance and label affect the reader more than the history and where the writing comes from? It seems that once a position is established, a side taken, a decision to be someone is chosen it is hard to think differently, even if this means simply breaking away from a first impression. If I accept that I am going to turn into my mother one day, I probably will. Although a recurring theme in Sommers piece is luck and how it was one of the things that made her and her mom different, she still found herself instilling the idea of luck into her own children. Are labels and who we are always defined by what we present on the outside, and how people perceive us or do we have the power to show what we truly are even from moment to moment? Author of the essay “Why I Blog”, Andrew Sullivan expresses how blogging is a true representation of oneself from moment to moment each time an author posts. With novels or essays its not as easy, they don’t have a choice in how they present themselves, but we can look at how the way a person thinks leaves them with a preexisting idea of how a piece of writing is or who a person is.

Genre in relation to people can be described in many ways if you look at Heilker’s definition. A way of being in the world could be as simple as the way you are when you eat breakfast or ride a bus, or could encompass a whole era in your life, like high school or college. But say that we think about genre in terms of moments, every moment having a different genre comprised of everything that has lead up to that specific instant, continuously making us who we are with every second that passes. This allows for a great deal of genres, and would certainly mean that people are more than just a label or stereotype that might be put on them, and also more than just one dimensional. This same idea, extended to literature, applies in the same way. As Heilker says “there are simply too many genres for any one person or even group of scholars to analyze in this [regularly assigned genres] way”(102). Books are more complex—as well as people—than any one definition could describe, or any one front could possibly illustrate. Combining literature and people, the idea still continues into the way authors write—when writing, what has made a person who they are comes across in their writing. However, with ever-changing genres comes some uncertainty of how things will be next, which although a lot of times very small can be scary just because it’s new and unknown. Also, if we are ever changing is there a way to present that new self to the world with every new moment?  Both Heilker and Sommers discuss writing and living with uncertainty and press it’s importance; “we have to embrace the uncertainty and stand naked and clueless in the face of new data and experiences” (Heilker 99) and as Sommers advises, we should have “courage to live with uncertainty, ambiguity and even doubt” (130). Both authors stress the importance of living, and even embracing the uncertainty in writing and life with each new experience, saying that embracing this is the only way to truly invent something new and learn about ourselves, thus maybe accepting uncertainty is one way to be both continuously be open to new things and to show who we are to the world with each changing genre. This of course is scary, because it means showing the world who we are before we may even know are ourselves. Andrew Sullivan discusses this kind of vulnerability in the context of blogging, saying that blogging is “raw honesty, its dedication to marking life as it happens and remembering life as it was” (1) he also compares blogs to diaries that everyone can read, that mark every moment of the authors life as it happens with 100% accuracy. In fact, any kind of writing can be making the author vulnerable in some way, either in the process of writing it or the act of publishing it, but with each case you find out something about yourself. Whether it was in the instant the piece becomes public or simply the moment you had a realized a truth about yourself you hadn’t come to terms with, with blogging, all in one moment exposed to the world.

Even if we accept that genre could define just a moment in terms of what has happened up until that point and that embracing uncertainty might be the best way, we also have to look at what has happened up until each point. Culture, socioeconomic circumstances, parents and peers all play a part in how a person views the world, affecting both how they will write and also how they view things they read. In turn, all of these factors also affect how we ourselves are viewed. If we accept certain ideas about ourselves, they inevitably shape who we are. This isn’t the only thing that shapes us; there are aspects in our lives that we simply cannot run away from, one of which is our genetic makeup. Sommers says several things in her piece about her mother and also about being a mother. She talks about how luck was a part of her own upbringing, and how her mother would send her “cards monthly with four-leaf clovers taped inside… printed in capital letters—GOOD LUCK”(Sommers 123) and she swears that it isn’t an idea she instills in her daughters, but ultimately she realizes that the idea of luck is part of what she passes on to her children. Thus adding the importance in also accepting things we cannot change about ourselves.

Approaching the unknown, whether it be the rest of your life, reading a new book or meeting a new person, with a predisposed attitude can dramatically change your view of it, but is this view permanent, or could your opinion change over time when the real underlying truth is discovered? On a much more simple note, when you select a book for its genre, does this label matter more than the actual content? This might be similar to judging people when you first meet them based on where they come from or what they look like, essentially a stereotype and sticking with that first impression, why keeping an open mind is so praised and encouraged when talking in the context of acceptance and understanding. With such a comparison, it might seem that genres within literature might hinder the whole business rather than help. We need to keep in mind, however, our definition of genre—everything that has lead up to any moment in a person’s life or anything behind what has made a piece of literature what it is. If this definition is kept in mind, it isn't difficult to say that we should indeed look at genre when starting a book, meeting someone new, or venturing into our lives. Although easy to say, the hard part is getting this across to the people who are viewing you.

Being aware of what has made something or someone what they are is probably at the core of understanding that person or thing. The common phrase, “walk a mile in his shoes” describes the importance of knowing the struggles and events of what makes a person tick. This can be partially achieved through writing and reading. How an author writes and what they write about says much about them, just as how you write says a lot about you, using your combined “voice, vision, and argument …[to] create the new source” (Sommers 127). When writing, it is never just one thing that creates a new work, but many things coming together to form it, an author’s background, voice and a new take on the subject. Writing is not only a direct reflection of yourself, but can also be used as a means of finding out who you are, “our acts of discovery are inward journeys as much as they are outward expeditions,” Heilker states. This means digging up things from our past to “[face] the possibility that we have lost parts of ourselves over the years” (Heilker 99), and discovering that these events and parts of the past are what make us who we are in conjunction with things that we get from our parents. The things we get from our parents being one of the most important things that make up who we are. Sommers mentions words from Reynolds Price, “nobody under the age of forty can believe how nearly everything’s inherited” (123). By the time a person is this age they may reach the conclusion that they are very similar reflections of their parents, like it or not, but it is this combined with personal experience that makes up a “new source” or who a person truly is.

Our genes and the things we experience throughout our lifetimes are what make up the genre of our lives, at every moment and through every time, fluid and ever changing, and changed even by the little things. Perhaps, albeit scary, embracing the uncertainty is the only way to venture into anything new, in writing, reading or in life, to get the whole picture—because you can never really know what is coming or how something will be.