my wood

I was reading over here today and was honest to goodness laughing out loud, not all "lol-y" but out right laughter was expelling itself from my mouth. Nick's a dang funny writer, you should all read over there more often. And his latest post about Jack London reminded me that I wanted to share this with you:

In the Nonfiction class I teach we read essays and articles that follow a thematic thread. We read definition essays, and then write them. We read compare and contrast essays, we write compare and contrast essays. We read memoirs, we write memoirs.

So while we were reading our round of cause and effect essays, we read a great little ditty by E. M. Forster.

E. M. Forster was a British author who lived for a time in India, you know, when India was a British colony (a la Secret Garden). Which, now when I listen to Indian accents, I hear a British accent in them -- is that weird? I digress.

Forster wrote a small novel called A Passage to India and the giant country across the pond (America) ate. it. up. We couldn't get enough of it. And so we Americans were the cause of Forster earning a pretty penny.

And what did Forster do with that money? He bought land. Specifically, land with trees. And he discovered after he bought this land with trees that when one acquires land, or really any possession, they want more of that thing. Or, they want to fancy it up and make it better. In a nutshell, we can and will never be happy with what we have -- we will always want more. And having more makes us want even more and the vicious cycle continues. Think If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

It's a great little essay that was effectively related to today's society because really, we always want more MORE MORE!! So where was the flaw in this essay?

The flaw was in the title. This brilliant little essay is called "My Wood."

And he repeats over and over "my wood." Not "my land," or "my forest" or "my property." Nope, it's "my wood."

Next, imagine you are teaching this to a classroom full of mostly 17 and 18 year old boys. And imagine that they are all horn-dogs-on-a-stick.

And imagine yourself reading passages such as:

If you own things, what's their effect on you? What's the effect on me of my wood?

My wood makes me feel heavy. In the second place, it makes me feel it ought to be larger.

In the third place, wood makes its owner feel that he ought to do something to it.

Good luck with that.