Operation Human Soul

One summer I took a reading class at another high school (not my own) in which I read a book a day for 8 weeks--the best summer of my life. I'd go to art or math class at 8 am, then reading class at 10 am; we read the whole time. We took breaks from reading to have one-on-one conferences with the teacher about a book we'd finished. I talked to the teacher a lot. After that class, then I'd head home with my chosen book, partway read, and then I'd spend the rest of that day reading. I can still see some of the books I read that summer. It was a glorious summer.

I'd always been a fan of poetry. We had been regularly forced to memorize poems in grade school. I always memorized several rather than just the assigned one. I got in trouble for it sometimes, but I didn't care. The teachers couldn't control what I did with my mind, so I did what I wanted to do.

The below poem was a favorite because I was such a rapacious reader. I believed I could go anywhere through a book--so I did. I had maps from decades of National Geographic magazines, from atlases, and such. We had a World Book Encyclopedia (it was like a very limited and dated print wikipedia). I could look up locations and learn a bit about most places in stories. We also had loads of other books around, so I could cross-reference if needed.

I felt like books did carry me away. I felt like I got to know the world through print. I checked out so many books (the maximum) every two weeks from the libraries. My mother and I would often read the same book at the same time from different libraries. We bought a lot of books from Friends of the Library sales, too. We were book rich.

And through all those days of reading, I found what mattered to me: empathy. I keenly felt what others felt. I empathized with their joy and pain and loss and successes. I was a better human because I had been immersed in stories of humans (books about Man O'War and Seabiscuit count). I still feel that way.

Books were my ships--my freedom--and those ships carried my human soul quietly, frugally, and brilliantly from shore to shore, enriching my life on every trip.

I have copied the below poem into notebooks, put it inside covers of diaries, journals, used it as the wallpaper of my phone. Even as an adult, I cannot recall a single day of my life that I did not read something. When I remember my youth, I remember spreading out on my stomach, elbows propping up my head, and painfully digging into the shag carpet, right by the giant windows open to my backyard, floor to ceiling for the entire back of the house. It was the best reading light I have ever known. I spent days and days by those windows reading for hours on end. I read novels, nonfiction, magazines, poetry, anything I could get my hands on from my local public library, my school library, or my parents. My mother had a huge collection of Reader's Digest books which excerpted books or included essays from witty authors of the early 20th century (specifically the Algonquin Round Table). In the afternoons after my summer school classes ended, I was right by these windows reading until it got dark or I had to eat dinner, then I continued on if I could.

As I grew older, it seems like wisdom now that I chose a path that includes writing, reading, critical and creative thinking. I have veered off the path of scholarly endeavor on many occasions for various reasons, but my most recent stint in university administration curtailed my efforts--because I let it. I needed that break as I transitioned from one school to the next. But now it's over.

I had several projects left over from the last few years that I could pick up and move along, but nothing was really blowing my mind. Until I happened to read this poem again.

I decided that I needed to so something with this poem by Emily Dickinson (pictured above):

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

I teach at a military institution and sometimes I forget how important stories are to how we function in the world. I wanted to revive the art of reading fiction for senior leaders, for anyone, who might have forgotten the joy of stories. We get so wrapped up in our work, our careers, advancement, socializing, working our networks, that we forget to read fiction. Or worse yet, some poor folks never really picked up the imaginative literature reading habit. They must be helped.

When warfighters plan things, they often name them "Operation This" or "Operation That." I have chosen to name my multi-year project, Operation Human Soul. I want to argue that reading literature should be something every human does--to connect to other humans, to share ideas, to make sharing stories normal, and something we do every day. We don't ask other humans "how was your day?" because we don't care about them. Rather, we want to convey our willingness to listen to a story when we ask that. We are predisposed to storytelling: cave paintings, carvings in rocks, in land, stories around the first campfires, the first oral stories, the writing down of ideas and knowledge to share with others through language, graffiti, tattoos, the invention of the printing press, the distribution of published materials, the internet, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Operation Human Soul will be about finding great novels from 48 home countries based on the home countries of the international students I work with. I want to find at least one book from every country to celebrate how we all tell stories, that how we can communicate with one another, and that by reading books from around the world, we can take a small step toward understanding the connections we all have, instead of concentrating on the differences. I want to find books that are well-loved in the author's home country, award winners, or required reading in schools, or famous in some way.

I don't want to analyze the literature. I don't want to judge. I want to invite: "Here are books that matter to many people. Let's read some. Let's talk about these. Let's share stories with each other." That's the conversation I want to be part of.

As scientists and readers collaborate on what reading actually does to the human brain (and it does great things), we learn more about why it's vital to read fiction and what it can do for our potential growth intellectually. But more important, reading stories can help us empathize with others. Honestly, we really need this right now. #fictionconnects