Week 11 reflection / problems

So this week I think i’m going to talk about conclusions.
Weird huh?
Well, not really. I noted in my lecture post from this week about our discussion of conclusions, and how it was  questioned why we were so obsessed with conclusions – why we thought they added to the quality of the work.
Sometimes in this class, I feel like such an old timer, fighting for the recognition and in defence of the traditional narrative structure.
I’ve said it before – I get that this class is focusing on non-linear structures. I understand that it is just a different form of structure, but at the same time, I wish the discussion in lectures wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss traditional linear structures, as if they are wrong or only believed in by people stuck in the past.
Because you know what? They’re not.
In decades to come, the book will still be around. I like Korsakow, I do, and I’m in love with technology, but in those few more decades time – I really can’t see them still being used at universities. But text books? Yes.

So why are we so obsessed with conclusions?
I get it, people love new media. As I said, so do I. but that doesn’t mean you can disregard everything that came before it as if it is less sophisticated or wrong. Because there’s a reason why it’s been around for so long.
Sometimes, we just need to pull ourselves back and think about things from other peoples perspectives.
People are obsessed with conclusions because they don’t always happen in real life. Well, they do, because everyone’s story ends, but they don’t get wrapped up the way they do when we read fiction. That’s why we read it – because it’s not something that always happens in real life (not always in the fairytale way anyway). We don’t always want to read about real life, we live it.
Sometimes we just need an escape.

So that’s where my main problem comes in with the non-linear structure.
If it never ends – what’s the point? What’s it offering me? I like to know that I’m going to get something from what I’m doing – I wan’t to learn something, to have hope, to be able to relate and apply those lesson to my life.
To be able to wrap up a story takes a lot of skill – especially if you’re trying to convince your readers of it’s likeliness as well.
A conclusion is an authors final say. It’s what stays with the reader, gives them hope and life lessons. I’m not disregarding all the other content that comes between the beginning or the end, or non-linear structures, because I know that they have lessons to offer as well.
Sure, I can see the way in which non-linear narratives relate to reality. But can’t you see the way linear narratives do too?
Our lives aren’t just one big story. (yes i’m referring to them as a story – because they are. Maybe not in the literal narrative sense, but I believe they are).
Our lives are made of thousands of different stories and problems, each which do have a beginning, a middle, and sometimes, not always, an end. We face problems every day that we fix. That we conclude.
That’s why we are obsessed with conclusions.

They offer us insight and hope.