Zeitgeist: The search to define one’s self

By Laura Cintino
Western Herald

Finally, we have a title.  This excites me more than the average person, mostly because I have a section of my DNA actively devoted to specifically labelling my life – just ask any of my platonic male friends from high school with whom I constantly had the “what are we?” conversation.  Usually these conversations ended badly, but I’m confident that giving my little space here a title will not cause us to devolve into uncomfortable conversations and insincere promises for things to “stay the same.”  Oh, and unending bitterness too.  I hold grudges.

But let’s examine this new title.  Zeitgeist.  Zeitgeist.  That’s a big holler (holla?) to my fellow German majors out there – the spirit of the times.  The defining mood of a particular period of history.  Really, I feel like a flattered schoolgirl allowed to call my column as such, as it dredges up quite the heavy connotations.  I feel as if I should be writing about worldly issues, things that concern everyone on a global level.   I should disgrace everything that is superficial, pop-cultural, and trendy.  I should skewer the hypocrisies and injustices of this world gone topsy-turvy, serve them up to you educated readers with a healthy dose of sarcastic, erudite commentary.  And lots and lots of big words.

But I’m not going to do that.  Well, there will be lots of big words, but I can’t help that.  I swallowed a dictionary when I was seven and haven’t been the same ever since.

Seriously though, I have good (maybe even erudite) reasons why I won’t be doing that.  Enough people do that.  Not that I watch the news, thank goodness, but I know there are several television stations that can offer you all the opinionated commentary on the world that you could stomach.  Go find the philosophy department and ask them to define “free will” if you want some heavy-duty confabulations.  On second thought, don’t do that, because I want you at least partially conscious when you finish reading this column.

In short: there are grown-ups to do that.

We have our own spirit, of our own times, and I would love to find out just what that is.  The goal here is to be well-rounded.  I want to show us off in a way that strives neither to be highfalutin or aim for the lowest common denominator.  I don’t dissect the larger significant of Facebook and how it reflects the most depraved aspects of youth culture today, but I also could never be all “FACEBOOK RULEZ. OMG.”

With this absurd amount of culture and sub-culture, there has to be some rhyme and reason to this mess.  Maybe we don’t recognize Facebook as a cultural phenomenon of epic proportions, but most of us have to admit it’s pretty cool.  Why not stop and take a moment to think about just how cool it is?  It might not be as important as, say, the invention of the wheel on the global historical scale, but there’s no reason to dismiss as low culture either.

To have a true zeitgeist, you have to recognize that you are part of a movement, no matter how marginalized you think you might be.  Throughout your life, people have no doubt been telling you just how special you are.  Or maybe that was just your own hipster voice in your head, demanding you to stand out.  You are unique.  You are the stripes on a zebra, the intricate design of a snowflake.  I would hate to burst your psychological bubble on this one, but that is not 100 percent true, no matter how many pairs of Chuck Taylors you own in however many different colors (I have one pair in plaid, for those keeping track).

We are college students.  We are all in roughly the same situation and in roughly the same point in our lives.  There are unifying aspects to our experiences that generally speak to us, on all sorts of levels.  That is why I know/hope it’s okay for me to write about whatever comes to mind – I think my opinions as a 18-25 year old freshman/sophomore/junior/senior majoring in whatever might end up being pretty common to the majority of us all.  That will be, in general, the spirit of our very own little microcosm of a time.     And if not, it is going to be funny.  And I will talk about Facebook.

Laura Cintino, a columnist for the Western Herald, is a junior majoring in creative writing and German. She can be reached at laura.j.cintino@wmich.edu

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=440

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Sep 11 2008. Filed under Weekend Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com