:: book bound

"I was thinking about your mattering business. I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do." (p. 201)

Reading John Green's An Abundance of Katherines was, at first, like reading a light-hearted, fluffy book about quirky teens - a one-time child prodigy, his sidekick best friend and small town girl. As you make your way through it, however, you begin to realise that beneath all of the racist comments (sidekick best friend Hassan uses racial terms regularly), mathematical theorums, banter and sometimes distracting footnotes, Green has delved into your mind and, based on your existing perception of life, really made a mess of things.

Colin Singleton, our fearless (or perhaps, fearful is more appropriate) main character, is a child prodigy on the verge of growing up. Standing on the brink of the rest of his life, he obsesses over no longer being a prodigy, lamenting instead the fact that he wasn't a born a genius destined to change the world.

"The vast majority of child prodigies don't become adult geniuses. Colin was almost certain that he was among that unfortunate majority." (p.10)

I grew up during the time of quasi-prodigies. If you demonstrated even an ounce of promise in elementary school, you were immediately dumped into a special enrichment program, meant to help your brain blossom, and possibly, sprout a million weeds. I went through a fair number of these so-called enrichment programs, and, I won't lie, I sometimes wondered what I was even doing in them (the math ones, more or less, to be honest).

Teachers, program coordinators, parents, etc, would always boast about your abilites and encourage you to be all you can be. The world was your oyster and they'd drill into your head the fact that you can do anything you put your mind to.

Then, you grow up. The real world doesn't embrace or encourage individuals who show promise. The real world, generally, crushes them instead. You spend your childhood and awkward teen years believing that you are special, the world is waiting for you, and then you discover, painfully, that you've been lied to for years.

That's when you begin to obsess with mattering, because, frankly, mattering just takes you back to childhood where everyone would fawn over you and your intellect, making you matter by default in your small, secluded, elementary school world.

Unfortunately, we get trapped in this train of thought. For example, here I am today, twenty-four years of age, still married to the fact that I want to matter. I want to do something that matters to someone. I don't know what this something is, but it's certainly bigger than merely mattering to someone because I took their dog for a walk or bought them candy. No, it has to be much bigger than that.

There's no way out of this thought process; at least, there isn't one I've yet discovered. It becomes life as you know it and instead, you find yourself miserable all the time because no matter what you do, it doesn't matter enough because your sense of mattering is skewed. I am perpetually unhappy with every office job I have ever had, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. My job does not matter. I have done nothing worthy of mattering.

"In another 2,400 years, even Socrates, the most well-known genius of that century, might be forgotten. The future will erase everything - there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible." (p. 213)

The book smacks you in the face with realities we all know, but don't often think about. Sure, I know plenty of my quirks are irrational, but they're so normal to me, I think I need them. Life is illogical on so many levels and yet, we obsess over things like wanting to matter, when ultimately, in the end, it'll all just fade away. One day, no evidence will exist and it'll be like you never existed at all.

It begs to question: what's the point?

... I told you Green's book makes a mess of everything. So much for light and fluffy.