all the world is grotesque

gro·tesque

grōˈtesk

anything unnaturally distorted, ugly, ludicrous, fanciful, or bizarre, exploiting the abnormal

Leonardo da Vinci, Grotesque Profile, c. 1487

Individuals who abuse, individuals who cower, individuals who insult, individuals who compliment, individuals who laugh, individuals who cry -- despite our differences, we are all humans. Regardless of personality traits, of mental capabilities, of sexual orientation, of religious background... we are all human.

And as humans, we are all grotesque.

As Sherwood Anderson wrote in Winesburg, Ohio, a truth is a composition of "a great many vague thoughts." Man produced these truths with his own knowledge -- truths of virginity and of passion, of carelessness and abandon; "All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful" (Anderson 23). These truths were what Anderson associated with all that was awesome in the world.

"And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. It was the truths that made the people grotesques" (Anderson 23-24). His belief was that once man took these truths and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque, as did his truth. But was it really the truths that turned us?

According to Sherwood, it was man who created these truths -- truths so incredibly magnificent and wonderful and winsome. If man had been the creator of truth, and mankind had been the collector of these truths, aren't we to blame for our own grotesqueness?

Since the dawn of time, humans have been stumbling through life, seeking that one great truth: what is the purpose of our existence? We've been driven by various ideas and thoughts in an effort to answer this question: we exist to seek knowledge; we exist to achieve biological perfection; we exist to love; 42. Some believe that life has no meaning, or that its meaning is so complex, it's better left alone. This last one, I believe, is an accurate representation of the message Anderson was trying to get across.

Once we as humans accept a truth for what it's worth, we attempt to abide it for all our life. Our persistence in maintaining this truth causes us to waste away and decay, shut from novel possibilities and new ideas. However, in Anderson's work, one of his characters discovered a preventative of keeping out the grotesqueness that comes with truths: "It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man" (Anderson 24). 

When I read this, I thought, "Youth can keep the truth out." When I think of this, images of babes and infants come to mind; so innocent and precocious are they, they're completely oblivious to the truths of the world. It could be acknowledged that this old man from Anderson's story was saved by his regression. 

But then I remembered that the youth wasn't a youth at all. "It was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight" (Anderson 22). Surely poetic and beautiful in its written form, its meaning can be obscure. Perhaps he equating women with gullibility and disregard for the truth; maybe he's praising them for accepting what he cannot, for bracing it like knight.This would make sense as he dedicated his work to his mother, "whose keen observations on the life about her first woke in me the hunger to see beneath the surface of lives."