I made a website!

Yes I did!  It's part of my final project for my American Novel class, the first (and last) English class of my undergraduate career!

Want to see? http://4emilyannwarren.wix.com/monomania

I did my project on Monomania, and the obsessiveness evident in our modern society.  I've come to realize in the past few months that a desire to be busy for the sake of busyness is unhealthy.  Too often we throw ourselves into work and study, neglecting all of the other things that we work and study for.

A lot of my writing was about literature, but I want to share a few of the more poignant concluding thoughts of my essay.  Thanks for indulging me- there are few things I love more than sharing ideas!

While dedication, hard work, and passion are important aspects of life in moderation, overemphasizing these qualities can lead to the creation of dangerous cultural norms.  The examples of monomania reflected in literature help create and propagate these ideas, both bringing awareness to the danger and furthering the expectation of obsession.  As argued by Davis, the result of this has become manifest in the way our society has come to view “mental illness as a way of life” (84).  Paul Lafargue, in his fairly obscure work The Right to Be Lazy, denounces compulsive workers as dangerous monomaniacs, victims of a pathology embraced all too quickly by workers (Lafargue).  We have become so obsessed with busyness and progress that we don’t value balance. 

Obsession in the modern world has become a sort of coping mechanism, a way to avoid the “oppressive insignificance of the everyday” (van Zuylen 14).   An idée fixe endows an individual with purpose, infusing life with meaning.  This meaning provides us with emotional coherence and a sense of control (Freud).  In this sense, obsessions give us an illusion of agency while actually ripping it from us.  As Pierre Janet observed, we trade the possibility of domestic, uneventful harmony for hope of a far-reaching and immaterial purpose (Janet). Ultimately, our excess of activity conceals our fear that there is not enough life worth living for.  And so we create causes, things into which we can channel our passion in order to block out the daunting demands of freedom and everyday living. 

Conclusion

Through the creation of a website, Monomania, I have attempted to provoke others to consider this issue.  I hope to help others see that our literature, and thus our culture, is embedded with the underlying assumption that fixation and single-minded dedication are the bedrock of progress.  And, in identifying this assumption, realize that it comes with a cost.  My goal is that we can come to understand that our idolatry of busyness and our “anxious relationship with laziness” are often the result of a “fear of living a life devoid of a grand plan or an organizing principle” (Davis 194).   Perhaps if we stopped measuring our worth by our futile productivity, we can come to believe, as LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley taught, “The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner” (Hinckley). Perhaps we can come to revere not those who pursue unnatural specialization, but balance.  We can teach moderation, and assure others that their worth is a reflection of who they are, not what they've done.  And, eventually, seek that elusive balance for ourselves.