In a world full of self-discovery and existential exploration, we are often stuck seeking a meaning to life, which Aaron Lawler has an unique approach towards answering.
Lawler explored philosophical questions by drawing connections between Ray Bradbury’s literature and self-identity during his presentation, “You Are A Story!” on Monday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Lumpkin Hall.
“Storytelling and the idea of stories are really what make us who we are, and being able to tell our own story and recognizing that we aren’t just kind of a story, like we’re a version of what we tell the world about ourselves, is really important,” Lawler said.
During his presentation, Lawler discussed what makes a good memoir and how to find yourself through your story. He stated that one’s answers to the questions; “Why are we here, what is the meaning of life, why do we die, what is the right way to live and how do we live?” is a great starting point to creating a good memoir.
He also said that a person’s story is about their relationship with their memories.
“Our memories are part of how we define ourselves and that relationship isn’t as neat or as clean as we often think it is,” Lawler said. “It’s imbued with a ton of emotion, feelings, issues of self-doubt, self-worth, self-esteem.”
According to Lawler, it is important to recall our life experiences so that we can better understand ourselves and begin to answer the big questions that humans have been asking since the dawn of time.
Lawler is a professor in humanities at Waubonsee Community College, near Aurora, IL and a member of the Road Scholar Speaker Bureau, which is a program through the Illinois Humanities.
He said that, “The goal of Illinois Humanities is to focus on Illinois creators. So, folks who are from here and sort of maybe had a similar mission of like, promoting one of the disciplines. So, painting and drawing, or writing poetry, all these kinds of things.”
Lawler chose to demonstrate the topic of self-identity and purpose through the lens of Bradbury, since he was an Illinois native and a complex writer.
Although Bradbury was well-known for one specific type of writing, he was very experimental with his writing styles and themes.
He stated that Bradbury is “known for his science fiction work such as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martin Chronicles, like these are his big famous works, right? But that was actually only a third of what he produced. Two thirds of what he wrote were either literary criticisms or what we would call more like coming-of-age stories.”
Daniel Douglas, the Director of the Academy of Lifelong Learning, was able to make the event possible.
The academy has worked with the Road Scholar Speaker Bureau in the past, so when Douglas began working at the academy, he was very interested in continuing those collaborations.
Douglas investigated the Road Scholar’s work and what has been done in the past at Eastern. He then decided to reach out to Lawler to set up an event, since Douglas was very impressed by his presentations.
Douglas hopes to host more events with Road Scholars in the future.
He said that, “Hopefully in the fall and spring semesters, we’ll have a different Road Scholar each semester. That would be ideal.”
Audra Gullquist can be reached at 581-2812 or at agullquist@eiu.edu.
