Personal Narrative: Mesquite

My father, being a literature teacher, would come home day after day and unintentionally present me various titles that all brought an aroma of mystery. Temptation would force me to reach upon the bookshelf, shovel the dust off of the bookshelf, and attempt to read strange new words. Every title would elicit a wide range of questions that would scatter my mind, but, because I lacked the wisdom brought by experience and context, there were no visible answers. Therefore, I continued to read fruitless, age accommodating, books that provided no true substance. Until one day, two particular books fundamentally shaped the way I perceived life, and satiated my longing to find significance. One day, upon venturing into a local bookstore in Mesquite,
Texas, The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell captured, with the covers intricate graphic image, my wandering eye. My life at the time, supposedly due to the divorce of my parents, lacked color, but the book before me, pleaded, in all of its wonderful colors, for me to make the purchase. My shallow mind at the time was only familiar with cliche Greek mythology titles, and never would I have envisioned the true essence of mythology. It was everywhere. Joseph Campbell introduced me to realms of significance and value. The somber gloom that had begun to plague my character soon ceased, and my eyes were thus forward transformed. Every sign, symbol, and story began to bare a pathway to acquire knowledge of myself and, unwittingly, of others. Truly, the idea that all people encompassed, and are searching for ways, to resolve their struggles allowed me to find comfort in my situation. The Power of Myth allowed me to escape my father's drunkenness, by indulging in the wide spectrum of myths, and encouraged me to find value within myself.
A few years later, I read a novel that my father had once claimed was, upon my questioning, one of his favorites.
As though lineage was inescapable, I decided to sit down and read The Stranger, my father’s favorite book. Before reading the book, I moved from my home town of Mesquite to Round Rock, right before my junior year. The book’s primary character’s reclusiveness was an attribute in which I was forced to share, thus allowing me to envision myself in the same circumstances. Upon reading the book, I found various ideas rather understandable, or perhaps, interesting. The book threw certain concepts that I would either cultivate, or alter to match my reasoning. I became fixated with the ideas of indifference and expectation present in the novel's overall theme. I began to question, perhaps due to the intuitive desire of an adolescent to rebel, whether there was truly a need to justify certain actions, and why I had to follow arbitrary rules, which taught me to not be bothered by the opinions of others. Most importantly, the book allowed me to find peace within my isolation by relating to the author’s capability to be content in all circumstances. These attributes allowed me to make my transition, from Mesquite to Round Rock, all the more easier. The Power of Myth and The Stranger influenced the way in which I lived by transforming my views to better adapt to certain circumstances. The immense amount of available information amidst a novel allows a reader, including myself,
to extract the details they feel are applicable to their current conditions, and learn to cope. Literature allowed me, on numerous occasions, to conquer any form of adversity.