Pathos and Les Mis (Part 1)

Note: This is part one in a two part series on Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  Today's installment focuses on his concept of protagonist.

Nineteenth century European literature, with a few exceptions (e.g. Dickens), grates on my nerves.  I admit this openly both here and in my classes as my policy with students is: honesty, in all its forms.  I thin my primary issue with Victorianism (which I argue extends beyond English in the time period - most of the continent is affect by the modes of representation) is that even as many writers attempt to deride the social conventions of the age (money, style, status) they typically play right into those norms with their protagonists. Either these individuals end up happy and married or dead.  The Bronte sisters, George Eliot, even Tolstoy aren't immune to these trappings.  I've heard a few people defend Jane Austen from this trend but she's actually the primogeniture.  (That's another entry entirely though.)  Dickens, as I mentioned above, is the only standout.

And then there's Victor Hugo.

For years I was not a big fan of Hugo mostly because I found his sense of pathos too deeply rooted in the traditionally established Victorian mind-set.  Then I started teaching Les Mis a few years ago and I found myself rethinking his place in the stereotype of the age.  Then I saw the musical/movie/social event of the holiday a month ago.  And I think I found what separates him.  Not as much as Dickens distances himself, mind you; Hugo's not that good.  But buried in the layers of 19th century misery is a tricky argument.

I'm going to start with my thesis: Jean Val Jean is not the moral protagonist of the novel.  Neither is Cossette.  And they are not my focus today.

I think Hugo drops us enough hints to suggest our pathos should be bestowed on other characters.  A quick review of pathos to make my point: Pathos suggests the unending and sometimes irrational pity we feel for (a) particular character(s).  Good authors make us pity the right ones: Dickens, Magwitch; Shakespeare, Lear.  The bad ones miss the mark: Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.  But most Victorians are caught up in the huge cast of characters they feel indebted to create.  So it is with Hugo in Les Mis: Val Jean, Cossette, Javert, Thenardier, Marius, Eponine, Fantine... just to name a few.  But here's my point: the two big names of the story, the ones most people walk away remembering and talking about don't do much to be worthy of our pity.  And if pity (pathos) is Hugo's design, then I think it's accurate to say he had others in mind.

1. Javert.  I'm going to roll out my controversial example first.  I have argued to my classes earlier this year that Javert seems to have shading of the lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, in Dickens' Great Expectations. They both represent the driven, professional, don't-pity-me personality.  In Jaggers' case though it's earned and kept.  He remains aloof from the true action of the story even as he manipulates it to some extent.  But Javert drives not only plot and pathos but also resolution.  When Val Jean spares his life at the barricades in the end, it's obvious the Javert's world is upset.  This is not how criminals are, he seems to be thinking.  He can't reconcile his perception and the reality of the man he is chasing.  This culminates later in his suicide at the river.  His world is essentially already over when he makes that choice; the jump into the icy below is simply the sum total of what can become of his physical form.  How does an in-alterable law coalesce around the penitence of a man wrongfully imprisoned?  In Javert's case, it doesn't.  Hence: oblivion.  But in that demise and the choice of that demise Hugo provides us with enough commentary of Javert's epiphany.  It seems to me epiphany, above all modes of representation, are designed to sway a reader's heart by virtue of the fact that the character can never act on it.

Indeed, we sense Javert's change from the barricade to the suicide.  We hope (a feeling he would NEVER want from us) the change can create a new man, one a bit more nuanced in his application of the law.  In the best of Dickens, we see this transformation play out time and time again against different backdrops.  But alas, Javert cannot (will not?) reconcile this new self to his morals.  He cannot see his way to this New France that the revolutionaries speak of either.  (Notwithstanding they are all killed, minus Marius.)  This completes our pathos.

2. Eponine.  Less controversial, I suspect, but more suspect.  Part of this argument will lead to my anti-Cossette piece later in the week.  Eponine deserves our pathos for two reasons.  First, as the child of the Thenardier's, we are predisposed to hate her.  These are wretched scum of the earth, not because they are poor (indeed, they are not; they run an inn!) but because they subsist on trickery and deceit of honest people (who are truly poor: Fantine, Val Jean, Cossette).  When we meet her in Paris, after having endured her parents abusing Cossette and showering affection on their own children to the little orphan's dismay, we are instantly set against her.  How far did her apple fall from the tree?  We see her early discussions with Marius, born to nobility and denying it, and we think right, like she's going to stick around after grandfather cuts him out of the will.  But that's not the point: Hugo needs her as the most dynamic part of the love triangle.  Eponine loves Marius; Marius loves Cossette; Marius uses Eponine.

And there in that last verb is our pathos.  The musical does a good job of this too.  If there is something Hugo is railing against it has to be the using of one human being by another: knowingly, willingly, and yet without realizing the damage being inflicted.  Eponine's looks (even through the page) are palpable.  The fact that she keeps helping him even after realizing she is only paving his road toward another woman (a richer woman too) is heart wrenching.  There's no other way to put it.  Perhaps she holds out hope that Cossette will leave, flee to England or wherever, and Marius in his misery will turn to her.  But I don't sense anywhere that Hugo means for us to take that too seriously.  It will end badly for this girl.  Even as it started badly for poor miserable abandoned Cossette.

3. Fantine.  It took the musical to make me realize this but re-reading the novel the last few days with my students made me see it there too.  Fantine, above every other character - yes above Cossette her daughter and Val Jean the stalwart poor-then-rich-then-poor Frenchman - embodies the title of this novel.  We could list the ways Hugo blitzes her: she cannot keep her child, she is forced from her job by rumor and heresay, she is driven to desperation (loss of hair, teeth, virtue), she is found by the only good soul we know and short of her daughter's return: dies.  She dies in the presence, interestingly enough, of not just Val Jean but of Javert.  There's no indication that her death matters to him but I can't help wondering if Hugo means that connection to be more overt.

Her death appeals to pathos precisely because what Fantine wants is the simplest wish of the human heart... and the most impossible thing for the narrative.  Where is my little Cossette, she keeps asking.  Val Jean's only response: She is coming soon.  She will be here soon.  Do we begin to believe him toward the end of her life?  Do we join her in hoping against hope that somehow the little girl will appear.  Val Jean has sent for her.  Is this true?  Is it meant to make her feel better?  Does it then make us feel worse than her?  Do we mistrust Val Jean as a result?  Whatever the case, it is clear: Fantine is the living breathing embodiment of pathos.

Next time: Why you should not feel anything for Cossette.

An Open Letter to Johnny Depp

Dear Mr. Depp,

Hi! Sorry, big fan! And not just recently either. I'm not just a Pirates bandwagon junkie. I remember back in the day when you were just not quite there in terms of your stardom, fame, movie choices. I remember when your name spurred comments more like, "have I seen anything with him in it?" I remember educating my college friends on the more serious side of roles your played. And apologizing for your role in Tim Burton movie. Because really, Mr. Depp, you could do better.

So the standouts. "Donnie Brasco" of course. I mean, dude, you taught me the nuances of "fuhgeddabowdit"! And then you double crossed Al Pacino! And you lived to tell about it!

Most people I know have seen in part or in whole "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and I certainly can't fault your love of Hunter S Thompson. I can respect the fun you had making that movie even if it never ends up on my list of top five Depp movies.

But I was really a disciple of your when you worked for Robert Rodrieguez in "Once Upon a Time In Mexico". Honestly, you saved that final installment in the Mariachi trilogy. Best scene: as an undercover FBI officer in Mexico going after drug lords you met with potential suspects and witnesses all while wearing a black tshirt with huge white letters FBI. Tell me that was your idea.

Not gonna lie - there was a dry spell for a bit. Part of that dry spell seems to be your indoctrination to the Tim Burton way. Oh to have a time machine and go back to change that era! I suppose I can't knock it all because we got a few good things. Well, one good thing. Your Willy Wonka rivals Gene Wilder, and that's saying a lot.

Then there was the epic, celebrity-fest that was "Pirates". Now, look, Mr. Depp I'm not here to pass judgement on your Pirates movies the way many others have. (If you're unclear though see what many call the Matrix-problem.) Fact is, I'm a big fan of your character, even if occasionally over-done. Love the way he runs, by the way. But here's the thing: I read on the Internet today that you have agreed to do ANOTHER Pirates movie. Another? After the failure that was the last one? And seriously, it was a failure. Check the box office results if you don't read critic reviews.

Though, really, the critics say important things.

So, why? Why would you do it? It can't be money. You live on the French Riviera for Goodness sake! Did Tim Burton stop calling? Is there really nothing better? There's no reason to believe it's somehow the script or story. And costars? Not even Geoffrey Rush is returning for this and he couldn't save the last one. So you must be fixed on this character in a way that is not healthy. If so, have some advice. Now, this isn't going to sound like good advice at first. You have to let it sink in really. Let it resonate. Then go with it. Ready?

Kill Jack Sparrow. You can do it. Only you can do it. Don't let Disney turn him into a cash cow of a zombie. Do it while we all remember the good times.

Yarr indeed.

Anyone Can...

I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super...no one will be. (The Incredibles, 2004)

Anyone can cook! (Ratatouille, 2007)

I find it consistently fascinating that any moral quandary I am considering, any paradox can inevitably be traced back to the movie company, Pixar, and one or more of their works.  Several weeks ago I posted an article that caught the eye of a few of my friends and students concerning some of the new teaching "fads" that I was being exposed to.  (I was going to say "indoctrinated with" except I have to admit that I get no sense that these techniques, these scientific principles of teaching will ever be assessed in any Orwellian way.)  I was flattered as I worried that particular entry smacked more of ranting (which I admonish my students NEVER to do in a formal way) than considered reflection.  The conversations that resulted from that post which amounted to a considered support for teaching as an art form over a scientific method spurred me to think further on the issue.

Leading me to Pixar.

The tag line of Ratatouille resonates with me both as a teacher and as an individual. It says, in no uncertain terms, that no matter the perception that others might have of me, no matter what they consider to be my ability and potential, that I can through the sheer force of my will coupled with the time I am willing to devote master any skill I choose. I can devote my intellectual power, coupled with my physical exertion, and overcome obstacles and achieve new things. Even as I type that I would argue that while my physical form limits certain things I can do (I cannot for example lift a 400 lb weight currently), my mental faculties allow me to find other ways to go about solving those problems. (I.e. why am I trying to lift that much weight? And is there another way of going about the lifting that does not require my muscles?). In this sense, I see the equivalency to teaching.

I did not begin a good teacher. I started, decades ago, thinking I knew what most students would appreciate in a classroom setting (which is defined as what I would appreciate in a classroom setting) and what was basically a waste of their time. It did not take me long to realize that many of my dictates were far removed from reality. Waxing nostalgic about my school days (which I often enjoyed listening to from my teachers) held no interest whatsoever. Get to the point, get there fast, make it relevant: that was the lesson of my first few years teaching. It was only after I mastered discipline in the classroom that I found I had time for more: stories that didn't veer from the topic but enhanced it. More importantly, I found that giving my students time to relate stories that were relevant was a much greater sense of trust than my forcing archaic tales on them. Through experience and finding the right mentors (read: seasoned and slightly irritable), I found my style. In this way, I believe anyone "can" teach. And I don't define that verb in the confining, denotative way it suggests. I don't mean just standing before a room full of students and possessing a college degree makes one a teacher. Handing out a test and then collecting and grading it doesn't mean you have taught or instructed.

But with time and, most importantly, a willingness to adapt I think there is no human being who cannot come to instruct, impart, whatever to others.

Yet what I mean by "anyone" I think has been taken over by organizations and (more scary to me) companies looking to make money and package the "skill" of teaching. Here is the leap from a single rat who, against all the preconceived notions of society and humanity, acquires the repertoire of cooking to the antithesis of the second Pixar movie, The Incredibles. What is genius and ability and wonder and laudable in the one, the individual becomes communicable (without human voice, without contact even) to the many.

The villain of The Incredibles operates out of resentment that he is not a hero. He can't fly or turn invisible or stretch like elastic. So he uses his mind (which I would define as a superhero organ to begin with) and builds gadgets to allow him to defeat what he considers "super". These gadgets can be massed produced (I wonder if Pixar had it out for Henry Ford some days) and sold to everyone everywhere. And when everyone is "super"...

This seems to be the concept bombarding modern education. When everyone has the ability to teach equally well, when everyone can share everything they have with each other regardless of humanity or contact or intent, then the entire system is composed of superheroes! We all win! Except the teachers who demonstrate success in other ways. Except for teachers who reach their students and push them to perform on more than just multiple choice tests.

I suppose even this comes back to the art form. I can't always explain why something worked so well in my classroom or even where I got the idea from. I can usually figure out why something didn't work and I don't necessarily need another set of eyes or ears to tell me that. What I do need is time: my own time to consider, think, evaluate, and redesign. I have a student who is having a hard time making rational arguments? There is no E2020 program that will help them with that. But talking to me about what they believe is right and wrong on this planet and why will get them into a better mental framework faster than anything. Heck, even a back-and-forth on Facebook is more helpful than a program of algorithms that supposedly helps them argue clearer.

I bow to Pixar for putting not just words but images and characters in places that stand for what I consider to be some of the mot dangerous and foreshadowing issues to come in this profession.

Revolution of the Absurd

I am barely 100 pages into Jon Meacham's superb and definitive tome on Thomas Jefferson, which he aptly titles, "The Art of Power". I would expect no less from the man who helmed Newsweek magazine but his prose and philosophy still surprise me in places. Pleasantly too. Early in the book, prior to the actual events of the Revolution, he rightly notes that the idea of breaking from Britain was primarily an aristocratic desire. The fiscal benefit of independence was amazingly seductive to people like Jefferson and associates Ben Franklin, John Adams, et al. As I read that, my progressive bones rankled a bit, even as I knew history must always be contextualized. Stupid wealthy white landowners plowing ahead again. But this was the Revolution! These were important principles and historic times. They couldn't be founded on arrogance. They just couldn't.

Chapters later, after the drafting of the Declaration, before Jefferson is to return home to his native Virginia, four realistic reasons or rationales are put forth as the most plausible things that would have been on the Founding Fathers' minds as they decided on independence. Refreshingly, Meacham acknowledges the typical and generic assumptions about their motivations and returns these:

"Lockean liberalism, classical Republicanism (via the Renaissance), the Great Awakening, the promise of capitalism, and the hatred of debt (and the British merchants and banks who were owed the debts)" (113)

I get the first two even as I remember, and remind my reader, that the definition of "republican" has changed pretty dramatically over the centuries. And the liberalism bit. I know a bit or two about John Locke but that's not my concern tonight. The Great Awakening, too, as a historical mode is less the issue to me except to say that I have to think Jefferson knew enough of history and philosophy to use those tenets for his gain without subsuming himself to them. The last two though strike me as the most interesting.

The hatred of debt. I hear from many corners of my small little world - voices both loud and small - bemoan issues of debt today. Indeed, I recall moments in my youth when I was warned, before I even had the ability to earn money in any real way, to watch and guard against falling not debt. And now here as a teacher trying to raise a family I find debt is a close friend, even if I wish he act quite so comfortable. Yet, it's not the debt I hate. Nor do I hate the things that have forced me to acquire this comparably small amount of debt. Things around my house break, they need repair or replacement, and money is immediately the issue. This is a constant and always has been, it seems to me. I don't hate the people that hold me in debt - exactly, although a few sharp words on what banks are and what they mean today would be in order, I think. No, I don't hate these things.

So while I know the author here is correct I find myself puzzled by it. "The hatred of debt." Is Americanism, in whatever form we wish to view it, simply the desire to acquire and have with the simultaneous hope that there is no payment exacted? I hear echoes of this in my small world as well: especially leveled at those who cannot pay for basic necessities. Food, shelter, medicine. But it seems to me the situation with Jefferson and his friends, his white friends, is more analogous than that. We are not talking about people who just want bread and water. These are people who consider colonization of a new continent their birthright, their sovereign and absolute duty before their divinity. Manifest destiny, even if that phrase was years away.

I remember thinking, when I first studied world revolutions, that the American experiment was a peculiar one. The French Revolution: class warfare and the violence of independence. The Russian Revolution: systemic change of government and thus culture. And America? "No taxation without representation!" Really?

I do not believe that Jon Meacham wants me to think any less of Mr. Jefferson or his associates and I do not pass judgement on their mental faculties or rhetoric ability or philosophic achievement. None of those are in question. But their impetus, the perception of their enemy and (perhaps most importantly) what they truly meant to gain... I am uncertain of.

Of Grog and Mutiny

I sat in a large heated room today for roughly six hours with forty other professionals and listened to two very energetic women attempt to redefine what most of us believe to be "good teaching". I have a pretty grudging respect for that these two do; in the space of just a few years they are undertaking the task of transforming how we go about doing this most important of things: educating the youth. My problem is not in any of the details that they present or suggest, nor in their methods, but in the aggregate of what they and other "educational coaches" all over the country are doing, namely changing teaching from an art into a science.

Like most people, I have a clear memory of teachers from my past: which ones I consider "good" and which ones I do not. But here's the first important distinction - nowhere in my vocabulary, then and now, do I equate "good" with "skillful". And the name of the seminar is Skillful Teacher. While others might suggest that these words are synonyms or at the very least bear a great deal of similarity in their definitions, I would argue the difference resides in the sense of their art and hence is a bit undefinable by these pedagogic experts.

The teachers I count as really important in my life were ones who had a great of content knowledge and applied it not in a gimmicky or multi-faceted way but who challenged me to take ownership of the information or skills, to make them my own. Or more specifically, didn't force me to use them/it in *any* particular or specified way. They were tools, in a sense, to solve larger problems ahead. Example: knowing the rhythms of John Donne's poetry might never have been an applied skill but then coupling that knowledge/ability with other forms of writing or editing made my prose all the more ornate, made my references and arguments all the more poignant. But it didn't take a game of round robin or whatever technique is in fad for me to get that. To that end I think good teaching is not so much about the HOW over the WHAT.

I don't however want to mis-speak however. For I am certain everyone who might read these words has at one time (or more) in their lives encountered the knowledgeable teacher who would not be able go hold the attention of an art lover in the Louvre. So is this the science part? No, this is the passion part. Again, the teachers memorable in my life were passionate - they LOVED beyond all reason what they taught and to not become infected with that love and interest and passion was to be something other than humans. And certainly I have sat next to folks whose lack of passion and humanity made them seem a bit otherworldly. There is a sense, I think, in the best teaching of something so fun and exciting that to not join in and not become a part of that world is somehow illogical.

That all consuming passion is the art that I don't think this seminar or any class that I have taken about "teaching" can ever relate or delineate. I don't know if I achieve that sense of passion and commitment in my classroom - I hope I do - but I know that watching good teachers do what they do is a thousand times more instructive than the six hours I will probably spend tomorrow learning about this science that people are now convinced constitutes teaching.

A Pirate's Life for Me

Until earlier this year, I never found myself having to defend my pirate infatuation. People either shared it or humorously accepted as part of my eccentricity. In fact, it wasn't until recently that I Really started decking out my classroom in paraphernalia that spoke to my own interests. Prior to this time, I typically surrounded my students with typical teacher pedagogy stuff: motivational posters and reminders of literary and grammatical rules. Because students LOVE to look at those. And then one year, one August, I realized that I had a much better chance of getting to know my students and they me if I opened with them about the things I loved and obsessed over. Thus pirates posters appeared, along with images of Key West and Cuba. (Those are separate entries, though.) The result was positive: people liked the personalized nature of the room. It even gave some of the kids in my room who normally wouldn't have had anything to talk about something to focus on.

Then this past fall a colleague of mine a school stopped into my room at the start of the year and, glancing at my walls, asked what my "thing" was with pirates. I stammered something about their being cool and a brief rundown of the whole "relate to my students" spiel but his response multiple times was simply: "but they're criminals". Something the kids like to talk about. "But Aaron, they broke the law?"

My initial reaction to this somewhat obstinate reply was to ramrod history into the conversation. "For most of the past several centuries, the difference between a pirate and a privateer was whether or not the captain of the vessel had a special warrant from a European country's sovereign." But that would have made me...

An ass.

So I muttered some kind of agreement with the man while maintaining that I was not out to corrupt our youth. Or drink hemlock. But the conversation has not yet left my mind (obviously: I'm writing about it here months later).

So why pirates?

First, I can resolutely say that my fascination with them preceded Johnny Depp, although like most of the world I was enthralled b his performance in the first "Pirates" movie, Perhaps it comes from my youth, where yearly the historical Gasparilla invasion of the Tampa Bay area was re-enacted. Perhaps my first sixteen years of life being so close to the salt water. Perhaps a rebellious nature hidden beneath the well honed desire to please. Whatever the case, pirates came to represent for me something beyond the realm of comfortable and that entranced me,

I recognize that recent events - Somali pirates, for example - provide us a closer perspective on how vicious and unethical real pirates probably were. Even tamer pirate stories like Anne Bonny and Mary Read (famous women pirates) and their mutual consort Jack Rackham contain an element of seediness that I cannot deny. And if they were so unsavory, why idolize them?

Perhaps it is not idolization as much as curiosity. To sail on the ocean for long stretches of time: this is and has been a dream of mine for some time. But it's more than that. Because pirates operated under rules that were slightly military in origin (many pirates were ex-military British or Spaniards) and yet were more flexible than that. There's a lot of joking in the "Pirates" movies about the "code" as rules or guidelines or whatever. But the more I read (and believe me I've read a lot) I think there was a sense that things were done in a certain manner, men were treated a certain way and to violate that way or absolve yourself of such restrictions was to be something other than a pirate. It wasn't so much lawlessness as other-law.

I would be remiss if I didn't offer a final thought. While I tend to revile the second and third "Pirate" movies, there is one element I identify with. The character of Lord Beckett, head of East India Company, is a cliche of course but within the cliche I find his threat interesting. There is something to be said, historically, for the idea that piracy was not threatened unilaterally by other countries and Kings, but by business ventures. That pirates made money, both legally and illegally, and companies the forerunners to corporations found that to be a threat or, perhaps more accurately, wanted in on the action says something not only about pirates but about Western culture as a whole.

My Declaration of Principles

In what I consider to be one of Orson Welles' best movies, "Citizen Kane", the main character Charles Foster Kane takes ownership of a newspaper and in it early days he lays out a set of guidelines for himself, his Declaration of Principles. Even though he goes on to violate not only the letter but the nature of these principles, I have always been struck by how articulate these rules were. Similarly, I knew when I wanted to embark on this new project of returning to writing that I would need something similar, a pronouncement of my own to keep me focused, to remind me on those days when it was late and I would really just rather not that getting these thoughts out is really really important.

I make no bones about that fact that I will surely stumble here and there, especially early in this attempt. It has, after all, been a long time since I have done anything like this, put my words on the page. And not just critical remarks, as I do for students throughout the school year. Those words might reflect some of me - my own predilections for well crafted sentences - but they often serve just as rails so student linguistic vehicles don't veer wildly from the cliff of reason and common sense. No, this has to be different. This has to be my edited but essentially unaltered thoughts. To whit: the words on the page are the ones I mean to be there. In this sense, my own medicine is good for me, as I have said such things to my students for years now.

So, my principles? Not many but also not alterable.

1. Details. I intend these thoughts to be as specific as I can make them. Vague and boring language is just that: vague and boring. And while my topics will surely run the gambit I here resolve not to let them be awkward flights of fancy. Having said that because I am engaged in a profession that is sensitive to the needs of the young I also proclaim I will never talk about my students, either by name or description. I will not let these words be free form for some puny rant about the frustrations of my day. This is more important.

2. Ideology. It is my sincerest wish that these words and thoughts, while they convey the things I obviously believe, don't spawn partisan bickering. I worry that such a goal is too lofty and in this world inevitably doomed to failure. By this time next year perhaps I will have fallen into the worst kind of vitrol but I hope not. I have successfully navigated conversations in both my personal and professional life that could have ended in pretty violent language but did not. In this I hope to achieve a little of what Ben Franklin called "moderation".

3. Importance. It does not escape my attention that the world of letters - not to be mistaken with the world of Letters as I teach the mindset and scope of the 18th century world - has flooded the Internet and blogs in a variety of forms exist all over. Reminiscent of Addison and Steele there are posts and responses about everything I could want I find. So when I speak of the importance of this place, this blog or whatever it become, I don't mean to other people. I mean to myself. If for a time it serves only to help me clarify my own thoughts and raise order up out of the tumult that was previously there, then it will have served its purpose. And if by happenstance other find it, read it, engage with it, then I welcome them too.

I titled this thing The Literary Pirate as I thought that accurately represented myself. I suspect the coming days I will need to do some unpacking of that phrase, again more for myself than anyone else.

Perhaps in the end this experiment - that's really what it is - remains an exercise in self-exploration. The words above, expansive and exhausting as they are, boil down to two fairly simple questions:

Who am I?
(and)
Do I matter?