I use the following story to talk to my students about symbols and how we think and feel symbolically whether we’re aware of it or not.
I’ve never been a car guy. I never looked at car magazines or watched shows about cars or saw a commercial and said to myself, “Man, I want that 2013 Ford Mustang convertible with the soft top.”
But this changed in 2012 when I totaled my car. At the time, I was driving a 1999 Acura TL, a pretty nice car that I had gotten from my parents as a gift when they upgraded their vehicles.
But now, the Acura was gone, and because it had been lost under my watch, my wife was the one who got the new car while I got her old one.
That car? A 2002 Red Ford Focus with Hello, Kitty seat covers. Choice!
All of a sudden I started caring about cars. When I would walk out from my office in Norris Hall to the parking lot, I’d feel more conspicuous if students saw me putting my books into the size-of-a-toaster Focus instead of the older but more prestigious Acura. I had never thought of the Acura as a symbol when I had it. But now that I had a less attractive car, I was keenly aware of it.
I had merely seen my Acura. Now I was observing the symbolism of the Focus.
One advantage of reading literature is that it encourages us to be more aware of the symbols all of us use and attach meaning to. The world IS meaningful because God created it. The real question is whether or not we’re attaching the correct meaning to it or not. I should have been more thankful for the Acura, and I should have STILL been thankful for the Focus. A car is a car. Its most important meaning is that I was mobile.
Still, part of me was glad when the Crocus (our nickname for the Focus) finally gave up the ghost last summer. I definitely appreciate my new car in a way I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t driven the Focus for three years.