Creating a Belief System

“I simply did what I had been raised to do.” This is a quote from Nancy Mairs’ essay entitled On Being Raised by a Daughter. This line particularly stood out to me and made me wonder how true it is that people don’t take an active role in their lives and pursuing what they truly desire. From the time that we are little kids, we basically see that the path that we are expected to take as we grow older – get a job, get married, and have kids. This is essentially what we are raised to do. This can be true in terms of our beliefs and values as well. Children adopt the belief system of their parents and some never question or challenge those beliefs and seek to discover whether it is what they truly believe or not. This can be the case in most prominently religious beliefs and political standings. Although I consider myself conservative and Catholic and I do follow in the footsteps of what my parents have taught me to believe, I am constantly questioning and modifying these beliefs to match beliefs that are more individual and specific to me.

Symbolism and Interpretation

I have written about it a lot already in my blog but Poland and its culture are very important to me. Polish culture and customs have played a huge part in who I am as a person and the values, morals, and ideals I have created for myself. In Maus, Polish people are drawn as pigs. Judging from the image that pigs are dirty and smelly creatures, and from how others call snobby people “pigs”, I found this portrayal of Polish people quite bothersome. We were very helpful to Jews and others during the Holocaust and often times, were the victims and prisoners ourselves. I decided to do a little research into Art’s decisions on what animals should represent which groups of people and I found a little reassurance. Apparently, it could be interpreted in a way that pigs symbolize a neutral animal and that the Nazis also saw the Polish as “swine”. There is a direct quote from Spiegelman that “all metaphors in meant to self destruct in his book”. In a way, I can see how this happens, since in the end, it didn’t matter what group of people you were originally a part of. In order to overcome the negative, those walls needed to be taken down and people needed to see each other as one. In the world today, I think discrimination towards others based on their ‘groups’ has definitely decreased and although we might have preconceptions in the backs of our minds at times, we are not acting upon those preconceptions in our behavior and attitudes towards others.

Importance and Beauty of History

Since we have started reading Maus, I have really discovered a lot of the beauty of history. Although there is a larger general history to the world and individual countries, there are also all the individual histories of all the people in this world. This has made me realize the huge importance of asking my grandparents about all the history they have experienced in their lives. I have heard some of their stories from when they were living in communist Poland or from the war and they’re incredibly interesting but over time, details have slipped from my mind and I would not be able to repeat the stories to another person to show them how proud I am of my family and my country and their histories. My grandparents aren’t going to be around forever and I really want to be able to hear everything they have to tell me about their lives. They have a lot of history and wisdom and I’d love to be able to have the chance to learn from their personal stories more. There is so much that they can teach me. I can gain so much knowledge from them if I approach them with an open and curious mind. This is something I would like to do over break.

Life Stories

I am really enjoying reading Maus. So far, it’s a very different kind of life writing seeing as how it’s written in comics and it’s a son putting his father’s life into a story. It’s very interesting to read not only because of these reasons, but because my family is from Poland and my grandparents were living there during World War II so I feel like I have a deeper connection with the content than others might. I have been to Poland and visited and toured many concentration camps in Europe and have seen a lot of the history more close up than many here have. Therefore, sometimes I feel as if this book means more to me. Some of the events in Maus, I have heard my grandparents tell stories about. For example, Art’s father talks about how the Nazis would check there hands to see if they were “working hands” or if they were clean and delicate and those with more fragile hands would be taken. This same exact thing happened to my grandma and her mother. They were trying to run away to a safer place and were stopped by officers. My great-grandmother’s delicate hands showed off that she was more privileged than others, so they took her and weeks later, my grandma heard that they found a woman dead in the forest. Although she was never positive whether or not it was her mother, she assumes that is what happened to her. It is hearing stories like this from my immediate family that really shows me that this history has so much to do with my country and who my family is and who I am today.

Marriage and Commitment

In the world today, I really don’t think people take marriage and lifelong commitment as seriously and strongly as they should. I feel that more and more frequently, people are acting on impulses and living “for the moment” or “in the moment”. Although I can admit that I am a spontaneous person that often acts on impulses, I am also very aware of the things in life most important to me and of the fact that all of my actions and decisions have consequences. In terms of marriage, I don’t think people really understand the weight of the words “in sickness and in health”, or “for better and for worse”. In Nancy Mairs case, it is amazing that her husband has stuck by her side after her diagnosis of and now constant living with a degenerative disease. Maybe this is why Nancy Mairs has regrets like marrying her husband. Looking back, if she had known she was going to get MS, she wouldn’t want to put her family through that misery and stress and would want to spare them that and give them what she imagines would be a better life. She is incredibly lucky to have them in her life though as a support system.

Regrets

Regrets. Is it better to say that we have them or to say that we live without them? A couple days ago I was watching a television show and in conversation, one of the characters said that anyone who says they have no regrets is outright lying. This kind of put me off since I believe that I have no regrets in my life. Maybe I have regretted something an hour or day after the fact, but looking back on everything, I have found a way to laugh at the bad things and would not take any of my experiences or actions back. I was very surprised and kind of taken aback by Nancy Mairs when she was discussing how if she had the chance to go back, she would probably not take Ron in, marry her husband, or have her children again. I can’t imagine having thoughts like this. What kind of a life is that to live? Then again, her take on a life is probably a lot different from mine seeing as how she is handicapped. Would my opinions change like this if I were disabled in some way? I would probably adapt some different values and ideals but I like the person I am today and cannot imagine changing that.

Like v. Love

There’s an interesting line between liking and loving something or someone. Nancy Mairs kind of discusses this in her essay about Ron, her son. Ron wasn’t her biological son and Mairs doesn’t seem like she ever really wanted him in her life to raise as a child but she kind of stumbled into the situation and felt too bad to get out of it. There’s a line where she states “George and I were faced with sole and full responsibility for a troubled fifteen-year-old in whose upbringing we had had no hand, whose values and attitudes were alien to us, whom, all in all, we could love all right but didn’t much like.” I really found this to be an interesting concept but reflecting on it, I understood. For example, in my family, I automatically love my parents and my brothers and sisters but no one ever told me that I had to like them too. The only reason I love them in the first place is because they are family. I could really clash with my siblings and dislike who they are as people but to say that I love AND like them at the same time is a whole other level of feeling of love towards them. Often I wonder, if my sister weren’t my sister but just another girl my age at school, would we be friends? Would I still like her? A lot of times, I would like to think so, but there’s really no way of ever knowing for sure.