The gateway to discovery

Morgan Rooney
MSMU Class of 2020

(3/2020) It is hard to imagine myself in an alternate universe where I do not have the ability to write. I know I spend the first five or six years of my life with very limited reading and writing skills, but that was so long ago and I knew nothing else.

It’s difficult for me to believe that just a few centuries ago, that was the reality for a reasonable size of the population. It is even harder to believe that in some places in the world, it is not uncommon for people to be illiterate. Illiteracy comes hand in hand with poverty. Many people who live in places with extreme poverty do not have the opportunity to go to school or get any education other than what their families can teach them. The sad thing is that almost two thirds of the illiterate world are women.

The authors I read when I was in school to improve my reading skills were very common among my age range, especially for girls. These are women like Barbara Park, Judy Blume and Anne Mazer. I loved to read about other girls who were around the same age as I was. From first to fifth grade, I really enjoyed their series’ and was encouraged to write as I was growing up.

I remember when I was in middle school, I would write creative stories for my English class. They weren’t particularly good, but I will commend myself by saying that they were creative. I wrote a story about an alien who came to Earth for the first time and could communicate to jellyfish. It definitely sounds silly now, but when I was 11, this was a whole new world that I had created with solely my imagination and a few other influences. Without the inspiration of female authors who had created characters and stories of their own, I can’t say I would be a writer today. One of my greatest hopes is that one day I’ll be able to inspire another young girl to write her own story.

When I got to high school, I was assigned a number of different readings. These included authors like Mary Shelley, Harper Lee and Agatha Christie. These women wrote some of the most memorable works I have ever read and I’m grateful they could share their talents with the rest of the world, including me.

I first started writing ever since I can remember. When I was a child, I would look at a blank piece of paper as a blank canvas ready for me to draw out my craziest and silliest thoughts with crayons to make a colorful masterpiece. As I got older and could write legibly, I felt the same way about a blank piece of lined paper. I could write anything without any limitations. Was my spelling great? No way, but I could sound out words enough where my parents and teachers could understand what I was trying to write.

As am adult, I spend my time doing what many others do, regardless if they have a college education or not. I drive while being able to follow directions and signs. I love experimenting with new restaurants and choosing new, interesting items from the menu. I travel to different places when I am given the opportunity. I take up a share of my personal time on social media. I write messages to friends and family to keep in touch with them. I can’t imagine a world where I am unable to partake in those things.

Having the ability to read and write is so much more than just getting around discovering things. Literacy is a gateway to knowledge and learning. Once one has the ability to read, no matter the language, a world of knowledge and discovery is opened up to them. Millions of books in the world are full of ideas, stories and history. Some of the most knowledgeable people I know are the ones who spend their free time reading and learning.

With the ability to write comes the ability to share your idea with others. Whether you’re sharing your opinion, a creative short story, a novel, research or history, you’re putting your ideas out in the world so others can hear them and learn from them. As I write this, I am sharing my thoughts and ideas with whoever chooses to read it. I am grateful for the opportunity to do so and I hope to continue to learn from others while also sharing my own ideas back to whoever wants to hear them.

I feel like literacy is something many of us take for granted, as we live in a developed part of the world where it is uncommon for us to think otherwise. For myself, I know literacy is something I overlook often. Going through school, I always complained how I didn’t want to go. I would get frustrated when I was five years old, sitting next to my dad as he helped me sound out words because they were long and challenging. Even now, with the opportunity I have to attend college, I still have my moments where all I can think is, "I want to go home." It’s important to remember what we have instead of focusing on the things we don’t.

Although I don’t have much time to read for pleasure now, it is something that I hope I continue as I graduate and go through adulthood. Most of all, however, I want to continue writing. Wherever my career takes me, which is unknown to me at this point, I have a goal to keep writing. I have always wanted to be an author and that hasn’t changed. Even though it may never be my full time career, it is something I want to pursue because I enjoy it and it is the best way to share what I have to say with the rest of the world.

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