There is a weight that everyone carries whether they know of it or not. Sometimes it’s just the physical strain that ends up being the reminder. Sometimes it’s the thoughts that accompany it.
In my bag, I have a lot of things that pull against my shoulders. There is the weight of heartbreak somewhere within the pages. It is almost essential to have that within what is stored away. There is something about life that won’t let us get away without such a thing. There is pain from that, but then again, there is always pain amongst the weight. It is a burdening thing that stays with life through all the journeys.
There is weight from what joy there is in the world. It is not the grand type that comes at once in an event. There is only the small joy that tug at the corners of the mouth when there is a frown on one’s lips. It hides in a pocket within the bag, trying to hide its weight from the world. It can still be felt, but it is nothing that is worrying. The shoulders of the bag will still cut without it.
There’s a rock in the bag as well. It is a painful thing to carry because so much rides upon it. Responsibility does that to people. It hurts to carry the burden because it loves gravity, allowing itself to be pulled along with the movement. It is the greatest thing that one has to carry. To lighten the load would be impossible, as letting go of some only brings a different form of it back. It’s always taxing.
Then there’s love. Love is an unusual thing to carry around with everything in the bag. It is like the joy that tries to stay light. But that is just dressing up what it really is. People tend to forget what is what when they carry their bag. But love is always an interesting thing to carry. It floats and sinks the straps into your skin. It hurts but one cannot part with it easily. It can bring pain and make the weight feel like it’s gone. The double edge sword of what burdens us is always the most dangerous.
I carry lies with me as well. They are too much like the truth because I give them life. It is not in the way that I give them meaning, but the way that I let them mean something to me. A writer tells a story of truths and lies. Sometimes there is a practiced ease to it. Sometimes there’s a shake of death that haunts one in the middle of the night. There’s a sense that the weight can play on both sides, yet be equally as punishing. The line between definitions blur with such use. Even my own mind cannot tell the difference between the weight.
But have I lied to myself again?
(Author’s Note: This is a response to the first chapter of The Things They Carried. I wanted to list things that can be carried that are not physical objects that can be weighed but rather the emotional things that people feel “burdened” by. There is also the part that, towards the end, brings about the question of the control of the author over the reader as well as the author’s ability to tell the truth.)
Your post and the first chapter of The Things They Carried flow very well together, because people can relate to the burdens listed in both passages. I think your list, because it is emotionally based, applies to a broader audience; after all, everyone can relate to feelings of joy and sadness. Your post leads me to a larger conclusion about the novel itself. I think Tim O’Brien does list most of the things the soldiers carried, both physically and emotionally. While he bluntly lists the literal objects the soldiers packed, he communicates the list of emotional burdens in a more abstract manner. Throughout the novel, we are told countless stories that cause us to feel a variety of emotions, from guilt to sadness to love to heartbreak. By the time we finish the story, we too have experienced a dose of the emotional things they carried. After all, given that the book is called The Things They Carried, it makes sense that an underlying theme would be O’Brien listing, by way of storytelling, the emotions the soldiers carried. The way O’Brien incorporated these emotional burdens is probably more effective than him simply stating that they carried sorrow and hope and regret etc. In writing the story the way he did, O’Brien enabled us to experience those emotions, so that we have a better knowledge of the things they carried.
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