Beauty, in its simplest form, really does exist.
It’s why you can’t dismiss the human experience as a ride on a floating rock. It’s why we still cry over sunsets, why we read poetry at weddings and why we ache to understand what’s beyond us.
It’s also why you can’t strip a book down to its bones. Doing so makes its anatomy nothing but a pamphlet of ink bleeding through paper — just a spine stubborn enough to stand upright and insist on meaning.
I find beauty in books. Always have. But there’s something especially blissful in buying them — in curating a collection, in letting them pile up before I ever turn a page. It’s not procrastination — it’s pursuit, and a humbling and hopeful one at that.
To live among unread books is to accept the vastness of what I don’t yet know and to believe that one day I’ll be ready for them. There is much comfort in the presence of these books, in the potential of all the words of wisdom sitting there, patiently, waiting to be read.
But lately, that scent of potential has soured. The decay isn’t in the pages — it’s in the people turning away from them.
There’s a plague.
Hollow shells walk among us, but they look just like everybody else.
We’re in an ugly, jaundice-skinned, wheezing and scratching period of anti-intellectualism. Pretension is out, and we’re all worse off for it.
No one, I would argue, is having a good time.
—
I come from a home that values knowledge.
My mother used to ask me to teach her what I learned in school that day, but really, she taught me. She deserves all the credit for showing me there’s always more to everything. If she’s curious about something, she’s already typing her query into “Mama Google.” But even so, when she finds her answer, it’s never enough. She has to scour down the subtleties — to know the “why” behind the “why.”
My father likes to test me. On long road trips, he’ll throw out a question and wait to see where my mind takes it. He’s a complex guy — analytical to the core, but he also has a penchant for the abstract.
One hour we’re debating: No, Baba. If you replace every plank, it’s not the same ship.
And the next hour, he’s pouring out everything he’s picked up from a life spent working in and driving through many parts of this country.
Yes, Baba, of course I’m listening. I still think you’re wrong about the ship.
So, obviously, I’m my parents’ greatest experiment. Knowledge wouldn’t feel this alive without them.
You could say I dabble in “yearnalism.”
There are writings I know more intimately than most of my friends. If you dig into my skull, I’m convinced you’ll find “The Brothers Karamazov” instead of a brain. If you dig into the center of me, there’ll be “The Symposium” and “The Diary of Anaïs Nin” instead of a heart. If I bleed, know that the poems spray-painted on crumbling Palestinian walls might come streaming out.
That’s my favorite thing about life — everything can be learned deeply enough to the point of passion.
Go learn knitting, astrophysics, clay-making, singing, cutting your own hair, quantum mechanics, philosophy, jiu-jitsu, Icelandic — whatever! Do it scared, do it smart, do it stupid — just do it, because nowadays, you absolutely can.
Knowledge is divine, and sharing it is human. Everything is, in fact, that deep.
So, after giving you this context — this meager sliver of who I am — you could probably infer why everything in today’s climate feels so dizzying for me. A humanities education is seen as easy, half-baked and useless; the words “art” and “reading” are treated as if laced with vermin. The next generation of doctors and engineers are bragging about being reliant on artificial intelligence to complete assignments. And according to researchers, we’re seeing unprecedented declines in global literacy rates.
To those experts, I say:
We can tell.
The thing about “Fahrenheit 451” is that by the time the books were burning, no one was reading them anyway. That fact — not just the censorship — is crucial. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about: drop and give me fifty pages.
I go through seasons of unlearning, but lately, the seasons have felt longer. Every step forward serves as a simple means to a shallow end. I’m surviving, but survival alone is sterile. It’s only one practicality already bordering on monotonous machinery. Machines survive, but they can’t ache. I’m surviving, I’m still stepping forward and I’m glad my feet are sore.
Humans aren’t flesh and neurons the same way books aren’t just ink and paper. Enough with indifference and petty ignorance.
I think we will witness a reversal. We will return to life. It will be slow and staggered, but it will happen. It has to. I don’t think it can get any worse.
If you listen closely, you can hear the stomachs growling. People are starving. They’re hungry to return to the pure presence of simpler times. To live life through the senses. To experience for the sake of experiencing.
To know for the sake of knowing.
Father, forgive me, for I am pretentious.
But I’d rather live in awe than die in apathy.
Death to anti-intellectualism.
Rawya Hazin is a Medill freshman and author of “Dear Reader, Love Rawya.” She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
Email: [email protected]
X: @rawyahazin
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