My mind won’t stop racing through the swells of emotions I’ve experienced while ingesting the horrors of the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I find myself examining my world with more scrutiny than ever before. I’m more loving than before. I view the value of my life differently than before.
When you experience the betrayal, confusion, and loss with Katniss Everdeen, it’s impossible to erase those emotions from your life. I recently read an article in the Washington University of St. Louis Newsroom about our brain’s ability to create vivid simulations of experiences that we read in narrative form.
A new brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to “get lost” in a good book — suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life.
“Psychologists and neuroscientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story,” says Jeffrey M. Zacks, study co-author and director of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis.
With this in mind, it makes sense to me why I feel so close to the events that happened in the trilogy. The mind-games, alliances, and losses all seem very real and threatening to me in some way. While I was completely consumed in reading I found myself to be anxious, hyperaware of my environment, and I’d lost my appetite. Almost like I was experiencing some sort of games myself. I hope I never will live through even a fraction of the situations presented in these stories but it makes me review her storytelling in awe as I think about the themes she brought into light – with Humanity at the core. What higher stakes could she have written about? How could she have made any of the events more meaningful to me? I find it hard to answer either of these questions.
Most writers, including myself, broach this subject with a subtle and understated approach. Much as we do on a daily basis in our routine activities. I’m weird in this way that I’ve always looked at humans as an animal. My husband will attest that I constantly compare us to other animals, especially in social situations. I often find myself wondering about how other species punish each other, or if it is even possible? I’ve never seen a monkey sitting in a corner because he did something bad. Their behavior seems to be so much more simple with immediate consequences to control behavior. Humans, on the other hand don’t seem to have a clear understanding of how our behavior affects each other anymore. We’re so far removed from our natural behaviors and instincts that we have to coach each other and train to be effective in maintaining relationships.
For the first time in a long time I was in the mind of someone who was truly being just human. I realized how removed I was from understanding my real needs in my daily life. I want to thank Suzanne Collins for reminding me how important our bodies are to our survival. This connection had such a profound effect on my life that I began to exercise again. As I realize what I was taking for granted, I actually lost my appetite for few days to digest the impact of my habits on my life and those around me. Food is just given to me. I can just walk outside and find it. How many people spend their whole days just trying to get food for themselves and their families without assurance that it will even happen? I’m not sure. I feel guilty.
I sincerely appreciated the honesty with which Katniss’ thoughts are written. She felt doubt, rage, depression, and the desire to give up multiple times. She even felt like she was not worthy of the attention or the trust of her people. I identify on some level with this. Again, the book takes everything to the extremes. But in my life I feel somehow like I haven’t earned the love, or praise or trust I have been given by my loved ones. I’m unwilling to change my behavior in many situations because I have underlying principles that I refuse to give up. Like Katniss, I cherish them because they are from my father. It’s hard to trust that people around you will love you for who you really are. The struggle to embrace your instincts and balance your behaviors in society is alive in all of us.
My job right now challenges these underlying principles of my being every day. I feel like most of us feel that way. We are removed from our real needs and bombarded with manufactured ones. I work for a technology company and find myself loathing its mission some days. If we someday face a world like Panem, would our race survive?
I live my life off of the facts. I’ve trained myself to be an objective observer of life and people and situations. I try to be fair to everyone because I do deep inside love people. I avoid thinking about concepts that I don’t think I can control or will affect me personally. So after reading this book, I have a difficult time thinking about our government. I’ve always put myself at arm’s length from the politics and the “circus.” Unable to think like them or know the real truth, I have accepted my life of passive obedience. Much like Katniss in the first book, I find myself focused on surviving and keeping my family safe rather than the big political system. Her catalyst for acting on that system is the affect it has on her family. The people in this book who were solely trying to stay alive were only motivated by the lives of others. It wasn’t “I want to live so I can ___.” It was always for the family or the lover. The focus on the other is what will save our race. It’s our final human instinct. The ultimate need. If that involves taking down a certain power or acting out, then people will do it.
As I was reading these books I marveled at her skill in storytelling. How she could use words to build suspense and paint beautiful pictures. How she packed so much meaning into every sentence. This story has impacted thousands of people. I questioned if I could ever do that. I held my breath during many painfully beautiful moments in the stories. Holding back tears, concealing my furrowed brow. But when I read this entry, the final one in the entire book, from the acknowledgements, I burst open like a water balloon.
And finally, I turn to my husband, Cap Pryor, who read The Hunger Games in its earliest draft, insisted on answers to questions I hadn’t even imagined, and remained my sounding board through the entire series. Thanks to him and my wonderful kids, Charlie and Isabel, for their daily love, their patience, and the joy they bring me.
Hearing my sniffles, my husband asked how it was going. Did I finish? How was it? How am I doing? I brought this last paragraph over to him and pointed at the source of my tears. As he read I don’t think he quite understood why it meant so much to me.
“It’s you,” I said, “You make me believe that I can do something like this.”
After a long embrace I felt some sort of closure with my Hunger Games experience. I am so unbelievable thankful for all the people I have in my life. I know my family will support me and my husband will be there to push me like no one else can. They are the reason I want to write and always have been. Suzanne shared her story for hope of change and survival of humanity, always with her family in the back of her mind. We need stories like this to remind us of what we have, what we’re missing, and especially what we have to fight for. Our love for each other fuels our desire to live. Our race depends on stories like this to remind us who we are and help us reconnect with our humanity, the thing we need most to survive.
