Color Outside The Lines: A Comparison Between The Messages Of Calvino’s Invisible Cities And Linklater’s Waking Life

What is life? There is no way to know, or at least that is what we have been taught to believe. For centuries people have believed that the human mind is too small to understand the concept of life, or that mankind is scared to find out what life is all about because at the moment it does the whole purpose of living will be defeated. Are those true? Is the human mind, which discovered how to travel across the Atlantic, how to make a language, and many more things really too small to understand life? It makes no sense to say that this is true. What makes sense is to say that society has been teaching every person to believe the previous reasons. Why, though? Society has been shrinking the intellectual capability of the human mind for thousands of years, discouraging people from finding the truth about life, from understanding what it all is. Our minds and thoughts are being oppressed by society so we don’t discover the true essence of life and stray away from the path that the mass follows. Life is too vast, too expanse, too abstract too be understood the same way by any two people, and if each person understood it then each would go their way. Society as we know it― the system that controls our impulses, limits our individuality, makes one person jus another one in the masses― would crumble. People want to feel like they belong somewhere and the systems of community and culture have ensured that they will. Trying to maintain the survival of society to remain comfortable we protect society at all costs and renounce the great power of our minds. “But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit…” (Calvino, pg. 69) Even Marco Polo has the restrictions imposed upon his mind by himself, and he denies the possibility of going any further thinking that there is wall that stops him. There are some people who are different: people who are not afraid to use their full potential even it makes them stand out as the black sheep in a herd of white ones. These people are willing to sacrifice the title of normal endowed upon them by the rest of society and let their minds loose, exploring the boundaries that have been set by the rest of humanity. Calvino and Linklater have both escaped the strict hold of society and use art as a way to get their ideas to many different audiences. They are telling us to ignore the oppression, to be ourselves, and to explore the meaning of life with individuality just as they did.

People regard them as weird because they are so different. The book Invisible Cities takes time to get adjusted too. The movie Waking Life also is hard to understand at first. Both of these pieces are very different form the common norm of books and films and for the minds of the oppressed it seems at first like the artists are crazy. As we let our minds go and are absorbed by the ideas presented we see that they are getting somewhere: that they are actually making a point. And it’s not just a point. It is a point that we can relate with in some way, in some far off corner of our mind that has been strong enough to find its way out of society’s firm grip. Ideas that before would be considered oddities and concepts that would make no sense ring as reasonable thoughts that could solve answers humanity has always been posing itself. The film Waking Life is filled with smart quips that serve the purpose of showing what the people who have traveled away from the oppression have discovered. “When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that.” (Linklater) It oozes with philosophy, every minute the audience feels more and more awed by the enormous and intangible size of what is being presented. All through the film we are told to do the same, we are instructed to discover and to be ourselves. “I want FREEDOM! That's what I want, and that's what YOU should want! It's up to each and every one of us to turn loose of just some of the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control, make us feel pathetic, small, so we'll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have GOT to realize we're being conditioned on a mass scale.” (Linklater) As the audience sees itself getting lost in the pieces things shoot from the page or the screen and find themselves embedded in our brains, ideas we cannot get rid of. Both the book and the film are very different, but they make similar points sometimes that help hold up the vivacity to ensure that the audience is getting the information they should.

Not only do they share what the discovery of the mind can lead too, they also criticize society. As every book in the course, there is critique to the manner of life we lead and to the way we undergo everyday’s life. Calvino and Linklater touched the same point in their critique of our culture: lack of communication between people. In Invisible Cities, Trading Cities 2, Calvino describes the city of Chloe. “In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.” (Calvino, pg. 51) Reading this makes the reader stop and think. Isn’t that what life is in any other city? Out of the millions of people one knows not that many, and the rest are faceless strangers who are a way to entertain yourself as you walk through the streets. The last sentence of the passage is a way to show the lack of depth of it all. It is a second that you devote to others, not any more, and then you move on. Here he might even be talking about the people one does know, but still never really listens to. Saying that it never stops is a way of asking if that is really the way we want it to be. In Waking Life the same issue is addressed. Two people are waking down some stairs on the street and they bump into one another. They quickly utter apologies without even diverting their eyes from the floor and move each their own way. Suddenly the girl turns back and says: “Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. ‘Here's your change.’ ‘Paper or plastic?' ‘Credit or debit?’ ‘You want ketchup with that?’ I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?” The shot is very interesting because it makes the viewer feel trapped, as the stairs are behind bars. Beyond the bars there is a dark street that gives one the feeling of emptiness, and farther away are some leafless, and thus lifeless, trees. What Linklater means by these trees is that many times the life people live is dead, not being used at all or enjoyed because we have been imprisoned by society’s ways.

Society has also managed to make worry and fear be a part of everyone’s life. There is not a moment that goes by in which one doesn’t remember something about the past or thinks about something in the future. This constant shift between times prevent people from focusing on the now, on the moment, and from enjoying life at that time. In Waking Life the main character gets onto a boat-car that is going to take him into the city. The driver is a man with an open mind and he believes that “every minute's a different show.” (Linklater) As he talks about life and why he believes this, cars zoom by in the highway behind and the viewer gets the message that as one thing is happening many others are going by, as the driver says the show changes and we have little time to enjoy it. In Invisible Cities, in Trading Cities 4, there is a description of the city of Eurtopia where there are many little cities, only one occupied at a time. When people get tired of their life the whole city shifts to a new place and the roles, families, couples, and feelings change too. “The city repeats its life, identical, shifting up and down on its empty chessboard.” (Calvino, pg. 64) A game board where very minute the game is a whole different one on a new level. The fact that both artists describe change and time in a way that makes it seem trivial because it goes so fast is evidence of the fact that they want to warn people who have not escaped yet that life goes by fast, and that it changes without warning. That while we are under the care of our over protective society we will never live half what we are meant to.

Although both works have a different narrative style, they also have some common fashions. Both are told in a dream-like manner that captures the audience’s attention and through which the message is passed along. They way in which things are thrown at the audience without explanations and one after the other leaving no room to breathe is a way to get many ideas into one’s minds. It might be overwhelming, but it is the only way to get enough ideals into a persons mind when they have so little in it and are missing so much. A very important part of the pieces is where we are being encouraged to understand and then later on do things. In Waking Life a man gets off a train and tells the main character to stay awake. “Well, I'm trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it's ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don't be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.” (Linklater) We are being told to examine the difference in life, to see what others don’t, and take a part in changing things because things can be changed if you are no longer being held back by society. Why are these artists trying to get us to understand life, though? What is it about more people roaming free that they like? They are looking for the system of repression and subjugation to fall to pieces. They want to see it collapse and see the revival of mankind as it is without limits, without restrictions.

Society is a futile attempt to hold back mankind’s thoughts. If no one was free from it and no one decided not to care, then we would be nowhere today. Columbus’s spent half his life arguing that the world was round and not flat, being called a crazy person. He discovered America. The Wright brothers where laughed at: the living joke of the decade. Now, we fly across the world every day. Einstein was a madman. No one could make two miniscule particles create such an amount of energy. Today, we cower at the thought of the atomic bomb. Earthquakes suddenly stopped being caused by angry Gods and became the result of movement in tectonic plates. Discovery. That’s what getting away from the constraints is good for. That’s why being called an outcast is worth it. That is why we should explore the boundaries of our minds and travel farther than we ever have before. We have been told time and time again to dare to be different, to dare to keep on going and keep on thinking. Why don’t we? Why do we let an antiquated system hold us back? Don’t we want to move on?

I could not put the titles in italics or the correct indents because of the format of the Blogger, but they are correctly placed in the actual essay. Thank you for eveything Mr. Tangen.

Urban Landscape: A Photo Essay

Yahoo v. Houyhnhnm

The debate today was very interesting, not so much because of the topic in my opinion because I thought that the topic had a decided position but because of the type of arguments that were made. I enjoyed how we went about the arguments in a scientific manner and how we would express out thoughts on the matter with out even letting it be seen that what we were debating was a fictional thing. When we talked about the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms we used a stern voice and terms that showed that there was no room for question: these creatures were real. I also really liked that one group in particular, the con-Yahoo, showed a picture that was not only funny but also illustrated the point they were trying to make. As someone said in class it might have been better if there was more text citation, but all in all I thought that it was a good debate that exceeded my expectations of it. Right before the last argument was presented by the con-Houyhnhnm I thought of a very good and what I think is a strong closing statement that showed a clear point and stated a hard truth: “The only thing the Houyhnhnms are better at is oppressing the people they feel threatened by as to maintain the higher position of their inferior selves.”

The Monster That Is War

“It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions amongst themselves. It is justifiable to enter a war against our nearest ally when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and compact.” (Swift, 185.) I would like to perform a close reading on this very ironical and sarcastic passage from the book. When Gulliver says that it is very justifiable, what is meant is that they have a sound and logical reason to do it, that the event has been caused because it will lead to a good effect. He talks about war meaning any type of fight with another country that includes violence, or with any other group that involves deaths and strategies. He says that war is justifiable when the people are starved meaning have been through a long period of suffering and are weak. He says destroyed by pestilence meaning that they are sick and that they have already lost a lot of their loved ones and energy to disease. He talks about factions meaning that they are already in some fights and so they must attack when the unity is weak. Then it talks about invading an ally if it means a benefit for them in territorial gains. Clearly, Swift does not agree with any of the things he is saying. I would even dare to go as far as to say that he thinks that when any of the above are the case they have no justification to go to war and going makes them the evil party. Probably Swift is saying this because many of the wars of the world have taken place due to or meanwhile any of the above described. I think that the events Swift describes are the basis of humanitarianism and that the governments and monarchies that have gone to war albeit them are here being portrayed as evil monsters, the same portrait that is painted of war here.

The Vices Of Mankind Through Satire

In chapters three and four of the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels we are told about the manner in which Gulliver is being treated by the Houyhnhnms and how he dedicates his time to learning their language. We can also see a lot of criticism to the European society in these two chapters and I found that they were loaded with ironical descriptions of human’s actions that were meant as Swift to show people the absurdity of what we do with the tools we are given. In this respect I found Swift to think a lot like Kurt Vonnegut in what we do wrong, with the difference being that Vonnegut is trying to justify it while Swift is pointing it out as pathetic.

“After which like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or heard before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation. Power, government, was, law, punishment, and a thousand other things…” (Swift, 183.) Here is just one of the passages where Gulliver uses all of his communication skills to try to explain to these noble creatures what the vices of mankind are. They do not understand what he says at first because in the “utopia” they live in they have no lies, no poverty, no need of laws or punishment, and no greed. Little by little though the creatures come to the understanding of the vices that are being described to them and as can be expected they are appalled by the behavior of such an advanced race. They do not understand, and I think that is exactly what Gulliver wants us to not understand and condemn too, how it is that people who can make huge building, organize themselves into a hierarchy, build weapons that function with fire, travel on water, etc. can use all these technologies and tools for wrong and destruction rather than for good and development. As was said in class at the time the book was written this applied to cannons and boats. Regardless of the time period we can see, though, that the principle holds true. Are we not threatened every day by the amazing power to extract giant amounts of energy from breaking atoms? DO we not fear that any moment a biological bomb developed by medical means will kill us all? Sadly that is the story of mankind: we develop and then use to oppress and kill. It is interesting to see how Swift does this without making any direct reference to it and we can catch on to it by the simple ways of satire.

The Yahoo And The Houyhnhnms

I wanted to see what other people had
taken each of the species for and so I
looked for diagrams online.

Severe Writer's Block

When you are writing a story, or a novel, or any other type of text that is for you then writer’s block is not that bad. I’m not saying that it doesn’t make my head hurt or that it is not an annoying thing. However, you can just power off the computer and wait until another moment where your hands are not fast enough to type all your brain thinks. When I have to write to comply with a deadline (as is the case with blog entries) and I have writer’s block, there is where I want to connect a machine to my brain to get me out it. I have been sitting in front of a white page for about an hour, just staring at it blankly and writing several starts to blogs about the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels. They all sounded something like this, “In the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift Gulliver reaches a new place because the men in his ship hold a mutiny and throw him off the boat. Here he gets to the land of the Houyhnhnms where he meets new characters. These are horses, but they are not normal horses, the horses here are like the people in England. In this part of the book Swift describes the new creatures…” and on and on in a repetitive fashion that says nothing of importance. Why have I entered into this state of writer’s block? Who knows? I don’t know why it happens, and even worse, I don’t know how to get out of it and how to write a worthwhile response. I guess I first have to know what I’m trying to say. As I think about that, though, I get this weird feeling that I want to say nothing at all. Maybe what happens is not that I have writer’s block but that I have nothing to say about the first two chapters. I thought that maybe I could talk about the description of the horses or the yahoo but I really don’t have much to say about that. I did think it was cool how Swift managed to make the reader understand that the Houyhnhnms are a smart people that not only think but have the ability to communicate on a complex level with each other. This is something that for us, humans, is only seen in mankind and what we say is the difference between men and “brutes.” To say that I find more in these chapters would be lying because I see no satirical pieces or any part worth mentioning. Is my mind malfunctioning today? Yes, it probably is. Whatever the reason I cannot possibly say more about this except retell the events of the second chapter which are basically descriptions of foods and the way he relates to the horses and the yahoos, but again nothing that I found very interesting. I will leave this post at this, because whatever more I say will be redundant and useless, but I will try to examine this part again and see if maybe I can find any other comments to make.

Chuck Close At The Gallery

I went to the art gallery to see Chuck Close's work, and based on the images of some og his pieces that we had seen in class I was not sure I was going to like his work very much. However, when i got there i really liked the mirror pictures. These were a small rectangle of material like mirror that actrually had a daguerrotype of people on it. The images, though, were not seen unless you stood right infornt of them and gave them color. I thought that not only were these very interesting because of how they worked but also because of the menaning that I found on them. As I thought back to them i think that the pieces were trying to tell us that stories and people only exist when we "look" at them. It seemed like they were not there until i stood right infornt of them and foucsed my attention on them and for some reason this metaphor with life, where people's stories don't really exist until you know about them, was very impacting. I thought that it was very nice to go and look at art and although I sometimes go to galleries it is something that I enjoy and I should do more often.

Irony And Sarcasm With Swift

It seems in chapter VI as if there was no end to the mockery. Swift criticizes many aspects of life in this chapter and he also makes fun of things that we don’t even give consideration to.

“…but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other…” (Swift, 32) here I think that Swift is using lists as a way to show the magnitude of language variations and how none of the many different ways we have worked. I think it might be a way to make fun of the lack of effectiveness of humans and at how we just cannot come to an agreement and all decide on one manner to do things but rather have a million different ways to do each thing.

“They bury their dead with their heads directly downward…the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready
standing on their feet.” (Swift, 33) This sounds funny as you read it because logic tells us first that the world is not flat and second that even if it was it would still not have flipped around. It seems a little silly to believe in this, but I think the point that the author is trying to make is that we have the seem ideas that to others might seem weird and even pathetic based just on faith and tradition.

“There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification.” (Swift, 33) Following Swift describes things that, in the case that the world was just and honest, should be very important to us. However our society thinks opposite of many of these ideals, although we proclaim that we don’t, and this is the point that Swift is trying to get across to the reader.

“...they will never allow that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or to his mother for bringing him into the world; which, considering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself, nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts, in their love encounters, were otherwise employed.” (Swift, 35) This passage is damp with irony and sarcasm, presenting the option of children not wanting to be in the world because of the bad place it is and saying that bringing children into the world is not something that they should thank their parents for but rather hate them for. This option is something that most people don’t consider and that is why it seems like a crazy idea.

Casual v. Serious

There are many differences between the three feature articles that we read, The Cost Cunundrum, Heeeer’s…Conan!, and JA, but the thing that struck me as the most different was the tone in which each of the articles was written. The Cost Cunundrum was an article that talked about health care in the United States and used facts and numbers to prove a point. Heeeer’s…Conan! Talked related the last moments of The Late Show and how the transition to The Tonight Show was taking place. JA was a piece that retold the life and experiences of a graffiti artist named JA. The first had a serious and punctual tone, the second had a nostalgic and sentimental tone, and the last one had a casual and factual tone. However, while each of these articles told a very different story in very different ways they were all clearly informative articles that were telling a story. I thought that it was very interesting to see how three different topics that can be as varied as you can get all registered as news in my brain regardless of the fact that none of them had anything in common. I think that reading these articles helped me notice that the point of a feature article is that it states something that people don’t know and that it manages to capture people’s attention while it does it. If I were to write a feature article now I would feel that I had a lot more freedom in regards to what subject I was covering and to the style that I was using to write the news because know I know that not all news have to be serious. A piece can be written casually and be understood as well as if it was written in a serious tone. Another thing that I saw is that each piece comes from a different place. I usually look at the same site for all my news, but I noticed that it might be really good to switch it up a bit and look at new sources or at a big list of them so I can get news on all areas and also in all styles s that reading does not become stale.

MacBeth Festival

I have always said that I like the classes where we do morew than only read and write, those where we get to use our creativity to learn. I think that having a MacBeth festival where we acted out the most importnat scenes of the play was a great way to do this. I really appriciated the opportunity to do something different and to apply what we had learned about composition to our plays. I only got to act and could not see any of the other plays, but still I imagine that it was very interesting to see how each group interpretated their characters. It was very nice to see that some people saw Lady MacBeth as an evil, power thirsty person while others saw her as a loving wife who felt remorse for what she was doing. I hope that we get to do more activities such as these and that as we have been doing through the year we make posters, presentation, etc. to keep the class interesting. I did not see the scenes as i mentiones before, but I am sure that they were all very good because people had been focusing on practicing the play and learning the lines to make it a good scene.

The Search For Satire

As I read Gulliver’s Travels I started to get worried about something, which, in all honesty, makes me doubt whether or not I am good with literature. Do I understand satire? Does parody make any sense to me? I would love to think that it does because that makes me feel like a cultured person. However I had the same feeling that I have now as I read Inferno, part of The Divine Comedy. I cannot lie by saying that it inspired laughter in me. I did not see almost any comedic sense on this work. With the present book I have laughed and I have seen parody, but some times pages keep on going on and I find nothing that could be a parody. This makes me doubt if the problem lies with me because I am sure that other people find something that makes fun of something else every two minutes. I felt compelled, thus, to share some of the things that I found funny in hopes of being corrected if I am wrong and learning more about satire and close reading.

The first obvious irony can be seen when the six inch Lilliput’s imprison the six foot Gulliver. One thing that I found very funny was the description of a watch that was made by the two Lilliputian officers in the inventory to the King. Here they say that they think that it is the object of his worship because “he seldom did any Thing without consulting it…he said that it pointed out the time for every action of his life.” (Swift, 14) I thought that this was funny because if you have never heard of a watch and someone tells you that this is what it is for, then you would probably get the impression that they are talking about a God because it seems so important. However we know that they are describing an apparatus that tells time, and I think that the parody is at society that pays more attention to time and lets that rule our life rather than to a God. We are, in a way, giving more importance to a material object than to a deity which is a little absurd, or at least it was in the time were the church was the center of life or had been recently. Another thing that I thought was a parody was the way the people of court got their jobs and their positions, by dancing on ropes and playing a game that sounded like how low can you go. I think this was mocking the nepotistic system that is applied at courts and how the King would chose whomever he liked for jobs that should be chosen by a meticulous process. Then another part that I liked and laughed was where he described how Gulliver had to swear loyalty, “hold my right foot in my left hand, to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip of my right ear.” (Swift, 20) Here the pure absurdity of the way we use gestures and movements, such as the locking of pinkies, to seal a deal is shown to us because we think upon reading the description that the are crazy but it is really no different to what we do. The other very direct mock is when he describes the fact that the small island might go to war with their neighbor, Blefuscu, and the cause is explained. It all started because one island likes to break their eggs form the large side while the other does it from the small side. Do eggs even have a smaller side? It is foolish to go to war over such a silly subject and what Swift is doing is mocking the silly reasons and excuses that countries use to go to war with each other and showing that they sound just like this unreasonable cause. As I go on I will try to analyze more of the satire, and I hope by the end of the book I will have found many, many more.

Gulliver Park And Misconceptions

The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear of Gulliver is the children's book that I read when I was about 7 about this character. The next thing is my visit to Gulliver Park in Valencia, Spain, where my family and I spent almost half a day running up and down Gulliver. I also remember that while I had lots of fun scrambling up his lags and sliding down his arms, there was something scary about the fact that there was a giant tied to the floor. On top of that, there was something that scared me a little about the facial expression and the way his body was contorted. Why are these things important? I think that I just felt that having a previous idea of what the story would tell made me start reading with some sort of prejudice towards it. I felt like we were going to dwell on a story made for little kids, which although I found interesting I really didn't understand very well. Now, however, I noticed that this perception I had about the story being made for kids was completely erroneous because there is so much in the book that only people who understand literature could catch, I don't even think I understand half of what is there, that it makes it a book for literates.

Quijote and Gulliver

As I read the introduction and the notes that came before the first actual chapter in Gulliver’s Travels I found that many things were similar to Don Quixote. Although the later is written almost 100 years before the first, I find that many things are similar in these few first pages. The first similarity I found was the fact that there were several preambles to the actual story. The book does not begin at once but it has some letters to the reader and then to the editor before they start. In both of the books these letters are metafiction, because although they are really written by Cervantes and Swift respectively they are supposed to be written by someone else who will be writing the story which is then published by someone else who also gets the chance to speak. The first time the concept is presented it is confusing to understand what is going on because the change in narrators who are really the same person can be confusing. However, as the reader gets used to this I think that the polyphony of the text is very useful in satirical writing as is the case with both works. With this tactic the writer can make comments about the comments he has made in the book and create some sort of debate on topics. By doing this in satire the writer also confuses who is writing and gets to “apologize” to the reader in an ironic way that would really be due to censorship. I really appreciated the effect this had on Don Quixote and I hope the same effect will take place with this book.

Another similarity that I picked up on, and this is not only between the two books but also between other such as Lazarillo de Tormes and some other texts from Garcilaso De la Vega as well as other writers of the time, is that before they start they undermine their writing and the readers skills. The fact that they say that their writing is less than what people would expect and that they apologize beforehand for any mistakes they make shows alleged modesty, but I think what they were trying to do was lower the reader’s expectations so that in the end they will hold the book in even higher regard. They might also be trying to make fun of the reader because they know that the reader knows that they think their texts are very good and this makes the whole thing funny. Swift does the same thing and before starting states that his style is simple and his writing basic, and I believe he does so with the afore mentioned purposes.

The last thing I saw in the first part that they have in common is that “My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best Authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books.” (Swift, pg. 2) It is also mentioned in Gulliver’s Travels that many people did not believe in him but that regardless of that he knew that his travels and experiences were the truth. As Don Quixote, Gulliver is reading a lot and what I thought of as I read this was that there might be the possibility that Swift is making fun of Cervantes with this allusion to his character that spent his time reading books and then came up with crazy ideas, as Gulliver’s ideas might seem. Also we can see that people were doubtful of the validity of Gulliver’s stories such as they were of Don Quixote’s because both are ideas that at the time they were presented would signal that the person was crazy and had no limits between reality and imagination.

Prom: The Perfect Night Or An "Antiquated Mating Ritual?"*

The op-ed piece I chose was not so much a piece as it was an opinion debate made up of several pieces each by different people with various points of view on the subject. It was called Prom Excess, Indignities, and flashbacks. As you can imagine, this debate talks about proms and whether or not they are worth all the trouble. Now, the views on the prom have always been clear. There is the group that sees it as the perfect night, those who see it as cheesy tradition they will still go to, and those who think that it is an “antiquated mating ritual… [where you] get all dressed up, so some Drakkar Noir-wearing dexter with a boner can feel you up while you're forced to listen to a band that, by definition, blows.”* In this article different people such as a teacher, a principal, a comedian, and a columnist expressed their opinions on the infamous senior prom. I won’t list all their views because I think that the different sides are clear and it would be a waste of time to summarize the article as it is available for anyone to read. However I would like to express my opinion n this subject.

Prom. One night that for many people defines the entire high school experience: the popularity contest, the rumor patrol, the dress to impress, etc. It is made up of many parts, the planning of the prom, the quest for the perfect dress, the search for the correct date, the transportation to and from the prom, and finally, the final moment: the perfect night. But in my opinion it is just that, one night. One night that people think is the entity of four years. This is a view I do not share. The prom, for me, is a very cool experience because it is a chance to say goodbye to the people you’ve been with, to the life style you’ve had. However it is most definitely not as big a deal as people say it is. In reality it all goes by in a blur while you look around and feel nostalgic for every little thing. Should it be exterminated though? Many people say that it should be because it is just a chance for teenagers to drink and it encourages promiscuity. These people that advocate the ideas that prom is this big illegal chaos are making too big a deal out of it. It is just a dance where “we’ll dance, we’ll kiss, we’ll come home. Not quite the crisis situation you imagine.”* I think that the prom should go in and happen regardless of the state of the economy or the swine flu “pandemic” because there is no evil that comes from it and the prom is a tradition that however pointless most high school kids look forwards to. Should it be have the importance that it does, though? I think that it shouldn’t. But then again that is my opinion and it really doesn’t harm me that other people think of it as the most important event of their life. I should just shrug it off and let them notice how silly that idea is all on their own.

*10 Things I Hate About You, 1999.

Thank You For Hating Her Book

We’ve heard clichés al our life. That does not mean, however, that we have to believe in everything they say, or do we? No news is good news; there is no thing as bad publicity, etc. The op-ed piece I read in the New York Times, Thank You For Hating My Book by Katha Pollitt, was a comical recap of how a new author got a bad book review-and how this helped her sell more books. She presents the idea that any type of publicity will let the people know that there is a new book out and this solely is a good help for her. What I liked the most about this piece, though, was it’s honesty and how it showed that even authors feel scared that people don’t accept their work. She wrote about how she would buy a book an hour, “I have free shipping and a lot of relatives,” on Amazon to her rating up, and while she did this her daughter kept telling her that what she was doing was cheating and did not count. Do all authors do something similar? Do they write good reviews for their books under a pen name? Do they criticize the competition with bad ones? I did not know. So I looked it up. Good old Google always comes in handy. I found several articles and posts that discussed how they had found that reviews and statistics on Amazon were many times caused or written by the author of the book. I did not find any “credible report” if we scale it with the UN terms, but for me that was enough. My suspicion (which had arisen only after reading this article) had been confirmed. My next step was obvious, I had to go to Amazon and see if I could find anything that looked like a fake review. That was harder than it sounded, with suspicion creeping through me every good review I read I viewed as a threat to the book’s actual “good.” My mind then raced on ahead of me: authors are scared when they publish. Knowing this made my day. I had always felt queasy about letting other people read the things I wrote (the blog is not easy for me, even if no one reads it) and I thought that it was a bubble of insecurity that I had within me. Now that I know that authors who “if you take out Dan Brown, I was practically a best seller,” also have a hard time seeing how others react to what they have written I feel much better. So I guess all I can say is…Thank you for hating her book.

Downtown Girl

This painting, Downtown Girl by Romero Britto has a lot to say from very simple things as are the lines, the color, the texture, the oragnization, and many other principles.

Lines

The lines in this image are very bold and they stand out boldly. They are also very straight and give the picture a broken and geometric feeling.

Size

The woman in the picture looks very big, even if she is closer to the viewer than the sky line. The

big parts of her body also give the feeling that she

is the most important piece in the drawing.

Color

There is a lot of color in this piece and there is great contrast between the different parts of the image. The colors draw attention to technique rather than to what is being painted.

Direction

There are lines all over the painting, but they direct the attention to the womans face because that is where most of the lines are pointing and also where there is the biggest amount of space.

Shape

All the shapes in this painting are very geometric and this makes the piece look a little like Picasso because geometric shapes are used to form an organic one.

Perspective

The viewer seems to be looking at the woman from eye level, but maybe also a little below

because we can see the skyline clearly and the bulidings seem to tower above the girl.

We Could Be Great If Only...

If I had any actual followers of my blog then I’m sure they would want to hit me in no time. I don’t really have anyone that reads the blog constantly and so I am not sacred to go out and try to reach to people who will read this one post for a strange and unknown reason. Yes, I will again pretend I’m a know-it-all and try to fix humanity by writing about what is wrong with it. Only this time I will use help from a Nobel Prize winning author to back up my ideas. Saul bellow states it, not me, so if you want to punch someone it might be a good idea to remember that. “Of course, the hero of the poem is sick humanity. If it would open its eyes it would be great.” And guess what? I completely agree. It’s not hard to see all the major problems we have. We are selfish, egocentric, self important, materialistic, consumerists, unreliable, and incapable of self criticizing for the most part. There is some hope, though, not all is lost. As bellow states very wisely, if humanity woke up it could be a marvel instead of a misery. It might seem to the reader as I was going on in a self hate rant that was directed at the whole planet because of a bad thing that happened to me today or because of my hormones, but I am not. I try to say true things, and up to now I don’t see one argument that I have presented until now that can be challenged. The potential in people is an amazing trait that cannot be seen in anything else in the world that we know, and that is really saying something. I personally believe that if we used all our resources for better purposes and if we tried to improve as a society and not as independent individuals we could get a lot farther. I thought that when bellow put this in his book he was trying to let everyone know that we do have problems, and that fixing them does not take much: it is as simple as opening our eyes. I still try everyday to fix little things and help the effort, and it makes me very happy to see that may people do the same. I always have the hope that one day we will finally get to a pint where we have mastered team work and intelligence so that we can make the most out of our talents and make the world the best place it can be. So I’m done with this cry of help towards whoever wants to hear it. One day, hopefully, I will have no more of these weird messages because there will be no problems, won’t I? It can’t hurt to dream. :)

Lady With A Parasol, Monet

In this painting by Monet there are many different principles of composition that can be analyzed.

Lines
The lines are very smooth and soft, not very defined or marked.

Size
The woman looks the natural size but the umbrella seems a little bigger than usual.

Color
The upper part has a lot of cool colors that contrast with the warm colors that are seen in the bottom. Very realistic.

Direction
The emphasis is on the woman because the lines point towards the center of the painting and the open sky makes us look for something to focus on.

Shape
The shape of the woman is very clear but the grass and the sky mix together and they make it hard to see which is which shape, giving emphasis and clarity to the woman.

Perspective
The picture is being looked at form a point a little below eye level and this makes the woman more dramatic and mystical because she seems to be more than whoever is looking at it.

I think that it is very interesting to look at the different aspects of a picture because they make you understand a lot more than if you simply look at it quickly, and I think that it relates to reading because the same principle of paying attention to get more of it applies.

Good Writing: Subtle Hints?

In A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert there is a lot of description done through ornamental language and through small hints that actually reveal a lot about a certain character. I thought that it was amazing to see how he did this in a very subtle way and how at the end of the story we had a perfect image and characterization of each of the protagonists without ever sitting the reader down and listing characteristics specific to one person. A great example of this is the following passage: “Elle s'agita pour les souliers pour le chapelet, pour le livre, pour les gants.” Here Flaubert is putting a description of Felicite in the middle of an anecdote which gives us an idea of her personality and disposition (she worries a lot and about very unimportant things) without making it clear. At the end of the book I felt like I really knew that character, and the feeling of surprise that I felt as a reaction to this feeling was one that I would love to create in my readers. I think that a lot of this happens with the parrot, too. We are never told that she is a sad and miserable person, but that is very much the feeling I got when I noticed that the most important thing to her is a parrot, and it is the last thing she recalls and thinks about before she is about to die. This also presents us with the opportunity to understand just how lonely she really is and how important “silly” things are to her, and maybe even to all the lonely people out there. Although Flaubert is a very ornamented writer and his text can not be described as minimalistic, I felt that in this respect on making the reader catch on to complex things by adding simple touches made him a type of minimalist. However, as I wrote this I started to think that all writers include hints as such in their writing and that maybe the fact that you can make the reader realize things that maybe would have been ignored by others is the essence of being a good writer. Is there really one trait that is key to being a great author or is it many different aspects of writing combined? I have come to think that it is many many items combined, and I am still surprised that as we go on through the year I see things that I thought were meaningless actually have a very big importance and effect on the whole piece.

Family In Literature

In this text I find that there is a topic that is always present in our lives, but we don’t always manage to express it well or to talk about it. Many times I feel this topic is left behind because we try to not see it as a big thing or because we think if we touch it everything will turn into a soap opera. This topic is family. Family is always there in our minds, even when we don’t think about it the influences from these people are there behind every little thing we do. Even if it is not the biological family, the people that were around us for the first years of our lives always had an effect on us, and as Freud says, our personality is the internalization of these very people. In A Simple Soul Felicite has a personality that I think reflects many things from her childhood, and the hard times she had to get through. There is also the presence of her sister who is really using her to get ahead and to provide for her son instead of due to the fact that she really wants to reestablish the contact between the two of them . This not only showed how people can be really selfish but it was further evidence that family conflict is very usual and that although many people try to ignore it, it is important to see that it does influence people and how they behave.

Cynicism In Todays Society

The mention of cynicism in a novel or a text almost always makes me stop and think. (I have noticed that now I commonly stop and think while reading books.) I feel that literature is usually a way to express a dislike of something or a criticism of the way people live. This is probably why when cynicism is mentioned I feel like there is a direct reference to the same work: metafiction. “…cynical? So many people nowadays were. No one seemed satisfied, and Wilhelm was specially horrified by the cynicism of successful people. Cynicism was bread and meat to everyone. And irony, too. Maybe it couldn’t be helped. It was probably even necessary.” (Bellow, pg. 13) I felt connected to what Wilhelm was saying in this passage: I also feel that today no one is happy with what they have. I identify with this myself, I don’t feel like I’m doing the best I could for many aspects of life, and this makes me be very cynical towards other people. So when Wilhelm talks about cynicism I felt like he was talking to me directly, and not to the innumerable amount of readers that he might have throughout all of life. It was very interesting to see the effect that this had on me, because as I read this [art of the book I kept on thinking back to it and for the rest of the time I was paying lots more attention to what was being said and trying to apply it to my everyday life.

Another topic that I related to the topic of cynicism was the part where he talks about money, and the effect that it has on people. It is sadly all true, too. You are seen differently in the world depending on how much money you have, and the system of classes that has been developed, invisibly, around the globe controls how everyone views everybody else. If someone with money and someone poor came and presented the same argument in a meeting you would probably slide towards the person with money, even if the ideas were the same. Is this because of the security that money brings along or is it because the audience would feel more comfortable around a person with money? It really doesn’t matter, what matters is that the issue is too big to be ignored. In the movie The Pursuit of Happiness I saw this variable expressed very well. The man goes form having some money to having none, but he gets back on his feet after all. How does he do this, however? He does it by pretending he has money all throughout, as it is the only way he will be taken seriously. What makes a snobby upper class teenager more valuable to the world than his poor and lowest class counter part? Nothing. Nothing at all. Society has always thought that there is something there, and this is the sad part of the deal. In the world we live in money, many times, means more than values.

Is Love Unconditional?

I have had a short life. I have had few experiences that can help me sort out the question I have in my mind right now, so I have taken the risk of going on a small rant that will hopefully clear things up for me. It might be very strange, but that is the way I take murky water and make it go back to its original transparent self. The question that clouds my mind right now is the following: is the statement “A man is only as good as what he loves,”* true? I would tend to argue that it is not true. This is because love is supposed to be unconditional, or at least so is what I’ve heard. If love is unconditional then it would be based on the fact that anyone can fall in love with anything at all, better or worse than himself. However, can we really-can anyone- judge other people and things to determine whether they are better or worse than something else? Is there a better and a worse? If there is then it could be argued that regardless of the fact that love “doesn’t discriminate” loving a certain thing just proofs that you are as good as that same thing or person because you find in them what you like, and you are what you like. Thus, this statement could be dismissed as true. If there is no better and worse, or if there is but we don’t have the power to determine which is which, then it would be impossible to show that a man is or is not as good as what he loves. Why does it matter, anyway? I don’t know why this passage struck me as something interesting, but as I read it I just felt like it deserved more consideration than any other normal sentence and so I decided to dissect it ant try to see if it was veridical or not. I still have no answer, but at least I have two clear choices now. Maybe one day when I have more than hypothetical assumptions to back my arguments up I will be able to state a clear answer to this, and figure out why this sentence seemed more important to me than others.

*Bellow, pg. 7.

Breathe Life In

If you go down a slope the second hour you are on skis, you will almost surely crash. The “collision” (Pynchon) is inevitable, it is like you know that it is coming and more than trying to avoid it you are waiting for it to happen. As you know it’s coming, you don’t have to worry about that and you can enjoy the moment. Carpe Diem. “I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery-air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’…My teeth crunched a gravelly mouthful. Ice water seeped down my throat.” (Plath, pg. 79) We have all had the feeling of feelings our lungs inflate, but I think that there is more to this passage than just that. By saying that her lungs inflate Plath might be trying to say more. The lungs receive the most basic item needed for our lives: air. Without air there is no life, and by saying that the lungs expand the author might be saying that the experience and vivacity of life increase as she takes everything around her in. Esther was ignoring the fact that she would come tumbling down any minute, and like she had no worries clouding her vision she could take the time to look around and focus on the now. I believe that by showing us how things can be better if we look at each minute as it happens and not before or after it does Plath is telling everyone of her readers that humans complicate themselves too much and never enjoy what goes on because they are too worried about what will happen tomorrow or what happened yesterday.

Sylvia Plath makes many allusions to subjects like the one above that lots of people can relate to, and I think that they all have something she wants to say about life in general in the, It is not the easiest thing to find, however, and I think that there is where a lot of her talent is found. How, I ask my self, is it possible to insert subtle and almost invisible comments into what otherwise is a funny anecdote? I don't think I can. Maybe I will be able to do it as I get more practice, but right now if I tried to pull off a close writing, I would most probably fail. I hope that as I read more and deeper literature I will get better at this and one day is able to hint at something I want the reader to see without making it obvious.

Literary ADD

I always think about what I will write before I do. Usually I have one idea that is complete enough to constitute a whole post. Today, however, something weird was happening. I decided to call it literary ADD. As I read every paragraph made me think about something different, and while I was trying to decide what this post would be about I decided to include all the ideas that popped into my mind during this faulty concentration period. There is no order to the ideas. No reason for them either. Things just came in and out like an open house, and I will just write it down like that too.

The name Esther does not fit in with my image of the character. I have always laughed at people who say so and so has a Peter face, or a Daniel face, but when it comes to it: names do fit better with some people than they do with others. The disposition of the main character made me think that her name would be something along the lines of Sophie, Alice, or Caroline. Don’t ask me why these names sounded more like her to me. All I know is that as soon as the narrator revealed that her name I felt like the whole story stopped flowing for a minute, and every time the name is mentioned I feel like I’m being slapped across the face.

The style of The Bell Jar is a hard one to give a name to, at least from my limited knowledge it is. Plath writes in a straight forward way that is not that straight forward. The events are easier to understand and imagine, but the feeling she describes are harder to capture. I really enjoy the way she goes off on small tangents that try to put images into the Esther’s emotions, and make the reader understand what is really going on. With this style I get the idea that there is more to every aspect that what I am seeing, but I am also confident that I am catching more things that I would have three months ago.

Criticism seems to seep out of every sentence. Sometimes directed at the main character, sometimes at a specific group of people, and most commonly to the vapid society that Plath seems to think is out there. If asked to place my finger on it, though, I don’t think I could show a specific example of it because there is no clear example of a strong criticism. The clues to map it out are probably there, but I think I get wrapped up in the story and don’t pick up all the evidence that she thinks society is a demoralized and invaluable group. I might be crazy, but that is just what I feel as I pass the pages.

Are Titles Important?

I never really pay attention to titles. Are they really important? To me, they are just a way to identify one book from another in a crowded library. Most of the time, the meaning of the title is very clear: a phrase repeated in the book, a concept which stands out, the name of a character or place in the story, etc. However, sometimes I can’t place the title and these are the cases where I ask myself why the author chose those few words to represent their story. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath is one of these examples. I have read a good portion of the book by now and I have not come upon any clue as to why the semi biographical book has this name. To be honest, I don’t even know what a bell jar is. Evidently, it is hard to imagine the purpose of a book when you don’t know what the object being referred to in the title is, so I went to a trustworthy source to find more about the subject: Google. I will allow myself to go on a tangent here and add that I have always found interesting how new developments become a crucial part of our life, and our language. The term “Googled ____” is used on a daily basis, we do things thinking on how we can reflect them on Facebook, colloquial chat terms such as lol and XD are now used verbally. Now back on track, what I found about a bell jar was that a bell jar is “A cylindrical glass vessel with a rounded top and an open base, used to protect and display fragile objects or to establish a vacuum or a controlled atmosphere in scientific experiments.” As I read the definition I got some ideas as to why the book could have such a title, based on the object. What it might mean, and I think it does, is that the main character is very fragile and that she feels what she does is open for everyone to see, but she has a hard time letting people in. It might also have to do with the fact that when things are in a bell jar, people really look at them and study them because it is implied that what is in there is important. I will keep on reading and asses the validity of my guess as I move along, but now, at least, I have a faint idea to the main theme in the book: observation.

Questioning Humanity...Again

I am forced to admit, very reluctantly if I may add, that by reading this chapter of The Selfish Gene my ideas about the nature of altruistic behavior were confirmed. I still hoped, in the farthest reaches of my mind, that there was no selfish behavior in altruism: that some individuals really did care for the benefits of others just because. It is truly such a ridiculous idea to help other people simply because? I would think that it is not. After all, I have decided to answer the unanswerable question of what is my purpose in life with this simple answer: to help others. However, when I started reading the book I noticed that everything that was done by unconscious species was for a selfish purpose, the thesis of the book, precisely. As I begun I did question the validness of this thesis, but as soon as I read this chapter I saw that really the nature of altruism was selfish, and that by helping others individuals were just trying to protect the genes they have in common with others to ensure that at least some are passed on. All this brought me to question humanity, once more (a theme that keeps coming up throughout the different books we have read). I started to wonder if it was truly worth it to try to make a difference, to help out in order to establish a better place to live in. How can this be done, though, if humans are the only species, apart from social insects, that decidedly start war? This is further evidence that the attitude man has towards life is a violent one that makes no sense at all, and one that is completely opposite to the selfish gene theory. If the idea of individuals is to maintain their genes for the future generations then going into a war that will kill thousands and probably even you is contrary to trying to live in a stable environment that contains the best genes, namely one’s own.

Male Or Female?

“Suppose a mother invested all her resources in sons, and therefore had none left to invest in daughters: would she on average contribute more to the gene pool of the future than a rival mother who invested in daughters?” (Dawkins, pg.143)When I read this question I decided to stop reading for a minute and discuss this question and my prediction of the answer. What it seems to me is that Dawkins is asking whether it pays off more to have son or daughters. Basically it is asking which is more important for a population. My instinct and my knowledge would tell me to not even regard this question as one that has any validity: of course, both are equally important. And as the author has mentioned many times this is my perspective thinking in the conscientious way humans do. The morality of this question is insulting because I have always been a strong supporter of equality, not only in the gender issue but in every other one there is. However, when I apply my slightly scientifically thinking there has to be a difference in whether a couples offspring are male or female, and I think that the answer will be different to each population based on some specific traits they have or do not have. In the case of populations and species where the females chose the mate out of various who are trying to get the position, then I think it would be a safer and more useful bet to have females. In this population the males have to go from female to female, fighting other prospective mates to get the position, risking their health or the chance to copulate. Females in this specific group are less at risk and almost assured to reproduce, so having females would be a better way to assure that the genes will be passed on. In contrast, when a population demands that the female follows the male, then the various possible mates have to put their lives and energy at risk, and they are not sure they will find a male to copulate with while the male is almost positive that he will find a female and using fewer resources. In this case, the, it would be more productive to have a male than a female. In populations where both parents must include equal resources to have a child then it is equally productive and useful to have a male or a female. I do not know if this is the correct answer, but I do think that it makes sense and that if my answer is wrong the real explanation is not very far from it.

How, Or Actually, How Not?

Is it really possible for a parent to favor one of his children over another? I have always heard comments flying around about how they love this kid or that one better, but I have never really thought that it is meant literally and that instead it is more of a perceptual thing conceived by a child who wants to justify their being mad at a parent. I do understand that in animals (other than humans) some favoritism would be visible because of biological factors that will have an effect in survival, such as not feeding the runts or caring more for the strongest individuals of a litter or a nest, as expressed in The Selfish Gene. However it is hard for me to imagine that, say, one of my friends or relatives lives in a house hold where some siblings are more important than others, and even more so that this happened for arbitrary reasons.

In the case of humans I would think that any being that was born in a family that had more children would be well received and treated equally because of all that playing favorites implies. It does not only say that one child is more loved or more appreciated than others, but it also states that the not preferred children are less important for the community. Is it possible, regardless of this, that I do know parents that have favorites? I probably do. My surprise comes not because I condemn the fact but because it makes me curious how houses hold with this certain benefit for some functions well. Is this favoritism obvious and admitted or is it something that is never discussed but still evident? Is it something that a parent decides or does it comes just like that? I guess I would lean more towards the second idea because it is not hard to see how a mother or a father can pick. We are actually taught to pick what we like best since we are small: our favorite color, the ice cream flavor we like the most, the animal we prefer, our best friend, etc. Looking at the evidence it seems as if the small minds of children were being structured to pick the best thing out of the available options all the time, to find something to identify them selves with. The question would then not be how some parents have favorites amongst their children, but more so how they do not. The question I have to ask myself, I notice, is how is it that some parents, most I would even dare to argue, maintain the strong influence of choosing out of their family lives and give all their children equal and unwavering love.

Family Planning

It is crucial for the understanding of the diagram that I have created to understand the defenition of altuistic behavior and selfish behavior. The first one is when an individual will self sacrifice for the benefit of another individual, possible of the same family or of the same species. The former is when an individual will behave in a way designed to help him or her advance and survive, without caring for other individuals. The Selfish Gene explains that in species, the reproduction is restrained and animals do not reproduce as much as they possibly can, instead they control the births in a population. The question that was asked was wether or not this happened because of altruism or selfishness, and I have created a ven diagram with both points of view to help understand the arguments for both sides.

A More Language Oriented Response

Reading a biology book in English class is not a very common thing to do. I would even go to the extent of calling it an eccentric action. To be honest, when the book started out I felt a monotonous tone, a very scientific way of explaining things. However, as I read more and more each page shows me that there is not only one reason why we are reading this book but many that are hidden throughout its many pages. My responses were usually very prone of going on tangents about topics that were not related to English or to biology, so I decided that this entry would be more about the lingual part of the book. As I admitted a little back, the book has many interesting aspects that I had not imagined could be found in a book that explained a genetic theory. The monotonous tone that I had felt at the start of the text was lost as I read, and a very good example of this is the following passage of the book: “In particular, it is certainly wrong to condemn poor old Homo sapiens as the only species to kill his own kind, the only inheritor of the mark of Cain, and similar melodramatic charges.” (Dawkins, pg. 67) Dawkins’ tone is very clearly loaded with irony when he states that “men are old and pitiable” and also full of irritation at the “melodramatic” tendencies of most people. Risking surrender to the trait of stereotypical thinking, Dawkins being a scientist is probably a very methodical person who does not hold drama and “myths” in high regard, and I think that is more than obvious looking at his word choice and the way his idea is put on paper. As a scientist writing a book about how different individuals and species survive in their environment he knows that man is the best doted species, and that we are, at least in the biological core, far from “poor” and “old”.

The word choice in the book is also a remarkable aspect, and one in which I would like to comment. It is amazing to see how in a book that pivots around a very specific topic as genes words are not used in an overly large amount where it is infuriating to see the word written down. This has happened to me in other texts, the most fresh example being in Sabato’s Sobre héroes y tumbas where the world “paulatinamente” was used with such a frequency I would picture it in almost every paragraph. In the present text, instead, Dawkins tries to use synonyms and metaphors to get around using the same images all the time, and as a reader I am eternally grateful for this.

The Amazing Power Of Genes

As I read along the book there is one topic that keeps on popping into my head. I guess more than a topic it would be a feeling, a specific reaction to all the information that we get in The Selfish Gene. This feeling is awe. There is no other way to say it, because no other word can capture the glaze I go into when I start thinking about the perfection not the human body. Tiny parts function in ways that are so simple yet come together as the most complex and perfect process known to man. It is impossible to imitate, not only because of the amount of required pieces, or the accuracy of every movement, or the precise timing in which it all happens, but because we have not yet fully understood how everything works. In the Gene Machine, Dawkins describes the brain and its function in the following way: “The main reason why the brains actually contribute to the success of the survival machines is by controlling and coordinating the contractions of muscles. To do this they need cables leading to the muscles…” Clearly, this process is not an easy one, and the creation of a system that coordinated everything so that the body functioned the way it does was a lucky happening of cellular evolution and cooperation. The ability to understand, communicate, and learn was an added bonus, but to us it is probably the most important part of the brain. How is it possible to read this book and study biology and not marvel at the wonders of life? I can never think of anything as perfect as the human body and the way everything inputs into it to form a thinking and healthy human being.

Another topic that was very interesting to me was that the genes are like programmers, and they judge their programs based on the survival of their machines. To me it sounds as if the genes were the scientists and we, the machines, were their guinea pigs. Maybe it is not the process that reminds me of this image, but the wording used in the text: “the genes are like master programmers, and they are programming for their lives. They are judged according to the success of their programs in coping with all the hazards that life throws at their survival machines…” The genes experiment and we show them if what they are doing is a good tactic or a bad one. In reality they never get to know how their experiment turned out, but if it worked the gene will theoretically be passed on and its change will become an active member of the gene pool. All this makes me think, however, that humans are really not that important as individuals. If genes use us as their guinea pigs then we are not vital to the master plan and if we die, “so it goes”* We have developed feeling and attachments to other people, and as these pass away our heart hurts with sorrow. Should it be this way? Were love and friendships concepts that humans were supposed to have, or should the attitude be more of a happiness that a certain non beneficial gene has died? Again, then, the question that hunts humanity comes up: Why are we here and what is life all about?

* A common phrase in the book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

The Soccer Metaphor

The architect metaphor is a very interesting way to explain genes, chromosomes, DNA, etc. I thought that it was a effective way in which to clarify the complex organization of a chromosome. As I read I wanted to challenge myself, and so I decided that I was going to try to come up with my own metaphor to explain this same organization of the nucleus of the cell. Here is what I have come up with, and although it is not as clear as the one in the book, I believe what I try to show can be understood.

A cell nucleus is like a soccer stadium, everything that is going to happen in a game will happen there. The stadium contains two teams, we will be focusing on one specifically for this metaphor. This team has one coach, who is just like the chromosome, holding all the instructions of what is supposed to happen during the game and in every situation. Each part of his brain that is used under the different circumstances are like genes, because they work for specific occasions in places that are not well defined in the brain, as the genes division in the cell is not clear cut. The purines, pyrimidines, and enzymes are the players, each of them is vital to the functioning of the team, making everything happen. A change in one of them can change the dynamics of the whole game. Any small mistake that is made and the outcome of the game (process) will be affected, just like in the cell.

The Role Of Luck

The chances that the replicator molecule was formed were not that big, despite the fact that there were thousands of molecules forming and that this was going on for hundreds of years. In my eyes, it was luck. Would I put anything on a replicator molecule forming? Definitely not. Maybe it is me as a very cynical person, but I don’t usually trust that the one vent in a million that you want is going to happen. Luck or whatever you want to call the good fortune that comes to a person when something they desire does effectively come true, does not mean much to me. Is luck something that a person is doted with or completely scarce of? Is it mere coincidences of good fortune that people have adopted as a trait in ones self to give them hope? I really don’t know what luck is. I do know however that through time luck has given people hope that good things will happen to them. It has also helped many others cope with their hard realities. Personally, I think it is just a device for humanity to deal with the many issues that it has present within, and I think it is a very good way to keep the world on moving. Back on topic, though, I would say that luck was without doubt an active member in the creation of the first replicator molecule. Of curse, humans were not around at that time to witness this and keep their dispositions up. Today, nonetheless, when we look back in time and see that out of the billions of possible molecules that could have been formed in that one instant, a replicator molecule that basically gave birth to life on the planet was created. If this quantity of good came from a small coincidence, then why won’t it come again? As humankind has been doing for generations and generations trying to explain the things that are not understood and grant most of these to supreme beings, unbelievable coincidences are attributed to luck. So what are the chances of evil disappearing, what are the chances of a efficient and renewable energy source being discovered, what are the chances of corruption evaporating and of good intentions to come over everyone clouding selfishness? They are very small, but maybe one day this utopia can be reached, just as one day life started.

Will Genes Take Over Or Will Humanity Stop Them?

Ideally, I would be posting a reflection on the content of the book. I would talk about how interesting this topic was because just 3 months before I had been wondering why some species were altruistic and others were not in biology class. However, my activist mind has gotten me off topic once again, because as I read the following passage all I could think of were the politicized principles that I have about the environment. "He might even admit that if only the individuals in a group had the gift of foresight they could see that in the long run their own best interests lay in restringing their selfish greed, to prevent the destruction of the whole group." (Dawkins, pg. 8) How could this not be related to the situation humankind faces today? The conflict we have is clear: Do we remain living the comfortable and environmentally chaotic lifestyle we have, or do we change our ways to ensure that Earth and our species will not be destroyed in a matter of decades? I have no question about this, we have to change. There is no other way to protect our survival, nor the survival of the planet that has provided us with everything we have. Regardless of the efforts of millions of scientists, environmentalists, politicians, etc. the path of the world population has deviated even less than a negligible amount. If this selfish gene concept is true, then a lot would be explained. It would be easier to understand why people don't care about the imminent fate that awaits the future. I wish that the gene theory wasn't true, because if it is the there is just one more justification to why the modern world can't "go green" and one more delay to making the world aware of the changes that must be made. However, if the genes are the selfish ones, then we can't let them crash our world into oblivion, we must fight against them and take control. As Dawkins states, each of our best interest lies in the survival of our species, and if everyone understood that then maybe it would be easier for us to drop our selfish and comfortable behavior and secure the good and healthy lives of our descendants. There is a way to change for the benefit of our own. It only takes a little effort and time to create a sustainable living of the planet, but for these patterns to be set everyone needs to help and to care. There is no other way.

Romeo And Julliet With A Different Ending

I read this poem about 5 times because I think it is hard to understand what is happening and the meaning of it at first. Now, I understand some parts very well and others not so well, and I will be analyzing the parts that I did feel like I understood.

The first 10 lines are talking about a couple that is running away. Elliot writes about leaving at night, which probably means that the couple is doing so clandestinely. A reference to an etherized table, like one a patient is being examines, available for all to see and vulnerable. The last passage that made me think the couple is running away is the fact that they will have to stay in cheap hotels and eat in any restaurant they fid which indicates they have few resources available to the, which is common during an escapade. I imagine this is a cliche, but when I read this I thought of Romeo and Julliet who could not be together and had to run away. Then, until line 50, I am not as clear on what is being said but there is talk of time to make decisions and to chose and to be each other separately, and I think that this might have to do with the fact that the woman is not very sure about running away because she feels it will commit her immediately, and that the speaker is telling her that there will be time and that their individuality will not be lost. Lines 70 to 75 have a different tone than the rest of the poem because where before the tine was persuasive and gentle, here the tone shoes bitterness and sadness at the loneliness the speaker has felt, and his skepticism of life. Until line 110 I think the passage was talking about the fact that everything they had to go thorough would have been worthwhile if only she had not had second thoughts or decided that she did not want to run away any more. The last part of the poem, I think, referred to the fact that he had no will to live anymore, because of this change in their relationship. He then goes to drown, but I don’t think this is meant literally, I think it means that he will drown in sorrow and in desperation.

Epictetus and Descartes: Related?

Epictetus (55 AD) and Descartes (1596) are two philosophers that lived in very different time periods. Nonetheless, both have very similar philosophies, and as I read Epictetus's Handbook of Epictetus I was constantly reminded of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method. At first I thought that there was no way that a Stoic Greek philosopher thought along the same lines as a "liberal" 17th century French philosopher. Going over some of Descartes’ thoughts, though, are very clear and concrete examples that this is so. The first item that was present in both their ideals was the fact that both saw fortune as related to wishes and to desires. Descartes says that fortune cannot be changed, and that this is the order of the world, how things are meant to be in other words, and so it is better to change one's wishes than try to change reality to get what you wish for. Epictetus states that misfortune is when one falls into an aversion that one does not want, while being unfortunate is not being able to do what one wants. Both of these are followed by the ideas that desires bring nothing else than sorrow because things have been planned out from the start and only the things that are bound to happen will happen. Another shared concept ties into this and it is the concept that we are to focus on what is OURS and what we can control. They both narrow this down to our thoughts, because everything else, they say, cannot be controlled, and so we should let go of the other things (i.e. feelings) and focus all our attention on our thoughts. Is this far fetched connection possible? Can Descartes have a little bit of what before I would have thought a complete different philosophy in him?

The Threat to the Essence of Life

When I was reading the first part of the introduction, and then the four first aphorisms of the Handbook of Epictetus, I was aware of the fact that Stoics believe that having no feelings or emotions is better because then you will not allow these uncontrollable emotions to reign you. However, I don’t agree with this basic philosophy. Although I can’t argue against the argument that emotions can not be controlled many times, and that they lead one to commit rash judgments and actions, I can argue against the statement that excluding these forces from one’s nature is a better way to live. What is life for? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do in life? These questions have been asked for thousands of years, and today they still cannot be answered. I believe, nonetheless, that when we are here and when life is given to us, we should maker the best out of it, we should be happy. Happiness is the top priority on my list, and it always will be. The reason for this is that it encompasses everything else: family, friends, love, health, and whatever else it is one would like to do. If one is happy, then I think that life is worth everything, all these unanswered questions vanish. Who cares why life exists as long as you are happy? If you can’t have feelings though, then happiness will not come. There is no way to feel really happy if you can’t feel love from others, if you can’t feel pride in accomplishing your ambitions, if you can’t feel sadness when something goes wrong. Life would become a big blur of actions and facts that had no meaning, and I personally believe that you can’t live a good life without emotions (as Stoics propose) because there wouldn’t be anything good about it. It would be a state rather than a reality. This is why I think that although eliminating some emotions from the realm of possible ones might be a good change to allow humans to focus more or to be better people, eliminating all feelings and all the variables in one’s disposition would endanger the very essence of life.