Ouch

Yevgenii traveled to some pretty dark places in his 'tragic sense of life' post. Not only did he emulate the first principle of Buddhism, but he also stated that the majority of the human race is both ignorant and vile! He believes most of us are wasting are breaths on this planet and are greatest accomplishment will be dying! This is a bleak outlook, but exactly what Professor Sexson is wanting from us. He wants us to see the world as half-full; he wants to see our lives as a sickness from which we can never recover. From the day we wake up in a state of ignorance, we are opening up a fresh wound that festers throughout our lifetime. No matter how hard we try to put bandages over it or seek ways to overcome our wound, it continues to rot away at our flesh. It's stench is so foul, it smothers any joy that might be left in the world.

And if you think that's dark, it's about to get a lot worse.

I reread the 'Rebellion' section in the Brother's K and was still shocked by the brutality of Ivan's descriptions a second time around. Ivan sees and feels empathy towards those who are suffering, but ultimately is still confused and frustrated with God's plan. Ivan states, "I understand nothing...I don't want to understand anything now. I want to stick to the facts. I made up my mind long ago not to understand." He sees the suffering in the world and is so repelled by it, he can not bear it any longer. No one from the church, including Alyosha, can answer his questions so he can only fall back on 'facts', otherwise known as science. I can easily see where Ivan is coming from. He has the right to be outraged by these blaring hypocrisies of religion. He goes on to say, "And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for the truth, than I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him!" Ivan's basically saying he doesn't want to live in a world where such retched sacrifices take place. He sees it as an unfair price to the innocent suffered. And I agree with him. The best answer Christianity can come up with to answer Ivan's questions is: God works in mysterious ways. That is not an answer, but a cop-out. Priests and pastors simply don't have all the answers to life's questions. Some people accept this and still keep their faith in God. Others hope for the best and hope their luck lasts long. Because in the end, dying has a lot to do with luck. People of Jewish faith living in Nazi-occupied Europe: unlucky. The residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: unlucky. The residents of Kokura (the town that was supposed to be nuked instead of Nagasaki) were lucky because it happened to be cloudy that day. Why did the entire town of Nagasaki deserve to die and not Kokura? Why couldn't God have put cloud-cover over Hiroshima and Nagasaki too? If you think you know the answers, you're either wrong or you'll provide an answer that boils down to sheer luck.

And that's the world Ivan would live in over a world that has mass human sacrifices for the greater good. Even if one life was spared for perfect harmony, Ivan still recognized the grotesque acceptance that went along with it. He would rather give life up to a game of chance.

And if you're like Mr. Sexson, that game is probably Black Jack where the house always wins. Get ready for a lifetime of suffering.

Found Poetry Assignment

I walked into class the other day and saw the sign "When leaving the class, clean up...." and immediately thought of how its no longer a meaningless background-noise sign, but a jumping point to a world of poetry and deeper messages. I'm officially offering another found poetry assignment for those who want to improve their daily lives and inject some mental productivity into the routine. This is a very general assignment, but after a few days and even some failures, we can all create some found poetry to achieve our goals.

1) Think about a bad habit you are aware of and wish to quit.

-Examples: Speeding to school, smoking, watching TV, gossiping, being judgmental, overspending.

2) Find a set of text that is associated with said habit. If you want to slow down while driving create a found poem off of a sign "Speed Limit 35 MPH"

Limit Speed

Limit Speed

35, 35, 3-5

or if you are trying to lose weight and you cant help but eat Sea Salt & Vinegar Chips all of the time. Write something like this:

Sea Salt, Sea Salt

4 chips,

less fat,

4 chips,

less fat,

single

serving

size

*make sure the poem makes sense to YOU and acts as a reminder of NOT doing your habit or gradual cessation

3) Print out the poem and tape it to a place in your bedroom that you will see multiple times a day. Take it down in a week. If you want to keep it up, that's fine. I'm betting you will notice the effects after only a week though. (Or your money back)

Description of a bad day and Empathy

Like Ashley, I'm not sure I can come up with a bad day that compares to Creon or any of the miserable characters in the Brother's K. I have lived a very blessed life. I have had a grandfather pass away when I was 5, but I really never felt I knew him that well. My parents are happily married, they are not alcoholics and, for the most part, they live happily and support me in my life pursuits. I've never been fired from a job and I've been admitted to the hospital a handful of times (all were non-life-threatening injuries). I am an educated white male living in America with more possessions than I know what to do with; my version of a 'bad day' is pitiful to any of the characters in the tragedies we've read or the tragedies we see in the news.

I'm assuming the point of this assignment was to generate empathy for the characters in Antigone, but its hard to do if you can't even come up with a bad day. I'll go out on a limb and assume most of the class hasn't killed anyone or witnessed a death for that matter. I'll also assume most of us aren't in the position of sentencing members of our own family to death. Professor Sexson will most likely say that Sophocles' message can still be related to the present generation. At some point in our lives their has been or will be strife that we have to work through. Tough decisions will have to be made.

I just feel like I haven't crossed those bridges yet. Thusly, I feel no empathy towards the main characters in Antigone nor any of most of the tragedies we've read. Which brings me to the thesis of my paper:

The large group of American youth of ages 16-23, does not find the Brother's Karamozov interesting because they lack the empathy that is required to invest themselves in the characters and themes. This is why our professor finds it interesting because he has experienced life more. He has had enough bad days to relate to the characters. I and many others of my generation are in a current state of pampered lives where deep thoughts of religion and strife within the family is not a part of our daily lives. We do not have fathers that are philanderers nor do we have a daily battle of questioning God and his whims. There may be some of us that bring it up from time to time, but it does not plague us, it does not bring us suffering. Survey the class and they will either be religious, non-religious, or indifferent to their faith. I firmly believe we are the apathetic generation. There are definitely young people who have a great passion towards issues that are centuries old, but the large majority of college students are simply in college to get a degree and make money. Professor Sexson wanted us to be inflamed, but sadly young people are choosing not to. Out of the 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students at Montana State, 75 students turned out for the most recent Service Saturday, a fairly well-known community service organization. Most of the students who join many of the departmental clubs on campus do so because it looks good on a resume or they get credit in a class for going. I think its worthwhile to have passions in life and I'm sure reading great works of literature such as the Brother's Karamozov can provide guidance to those passions. But for some of us, it's too soon. We are not mature enough to read a book such yet. I hope one day after enough attempts I can.

Brother's K!

As our professor aptly put, we need to be writing about the Brother's Karamozov. Specifically, we need to be writing about the motifs, themes, symbols and how the characters relate to us the reader and past characters in literature. I've decided to tackle one of the central themes of the book: faith vs. doubt. Sparknotes neatly summarizes the conflict that reappears throughout the novel:

Faith in the novel refers to the positive, assenting belief in God practiced by Zosima and Alyosha, which lends itself to an active love of mankind, kindness, forgiveness, and a devotion to goodness. Doubt refers to the kind of logical skepticism that Ivan Karamazov practices, which, in pursuing the truth through the logical examination of evidence, lends itself to the rejection of God, the rejection of conventional notions of morality, a coldness toward mankind, and a crippling inner despair. Dostoevsky does not present these positions neutrally. He actively takes the side of faith, and illustrates through innumerable examples how a life of faith is happier than a life of doubt. Doubt, as we see in Smerdyakov’s murder of Fyodor Pavlovich and in Ivan’s breakdown, leads only to chaos and unhappiness.

On a personal level I relate to Ivan's central rejection of God (at least in the Christian sense) and I also relate to Alyosha's love of mankind and forgiveness. It seems that Dostoevsky presents the the two sides as black & white and leaves the readers with this ultimatum: you're either a man of faith, or you're a man of doubt (or science). Why can't a person have traits from both sides? There are certainly people in the world that reject God and yet refrain from violent outbursts, but instead have a devotion of goodness. On the flip-side, as much as people of faith would like to think they are leading a life of tolerance and goodness, there are many who practice the opposite of what they preach. (At this point, I may be stepping on other people's toes, so please stop reading if you feel easily offended.) One of my major qualms with Christianity is the fact that the Ten Commandments seem to be the baseline of the whole religion and yet they are broken far too often. Here they are as a refresher:

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

This post could go long, but I'll try to cover the glaring hypocrisies I see especially in American culture. Adultery is common theme in our society, so much to the point it's seemed to have become the norm. Stealing is another commandment broken mainly because it is a grey-area topic. What qualifies as stealing? Stealing a pen from a friend? Plagiarism? Downloading music illegally? You would think the latter was stealing since it is also recognized by law as stealing, but yet people commit variations of stealing while justifying it in the same breath. The final commandment that seems to be broken and accepted is the sixth: Thou shall not murder. Our society has simply created laws and reasoning around this commandment and have redefined the term "murder" into several sub-categories. A person is not "murdering" if they were acting in self-defense. A person is not "murdering" as long as it is for a just cause that the majority of society supports.

I realize no one's perfect and I, myself, have committed sins such as downloading music, lying, and especially placing other deities before God. However, if even the most holy and well-intentioned people cannot adhere to the simple commandments God has asked of them, than aren't we all living in a world of chaos and unhappiness? The only difference between the faithful and the doubters is that the Alyoshas of the world choose to ignore their sins, while the Ivans of the world accept theirs.

Space Traveling

Space would be such a cool place to visit. Just thinking about it makes my head spin. The problem is that the process of being CONSIDERED to go to space is both time consuming and labor-intensive. A good third of your life leads up to this once in a lifetime opportunity of leaving the Earth's atmosphere and traveling into the unknown. However, I'm not arguing about whether it's worth it or not.

Unfortunately, not all of us can become astronauts. Sure, there are thousands, maybe even millions of people who would love to go to space, but most people do not have the resources to access the final frontier. It's unbelievably frustrating when we have limitations on our dreams. It would be nice to overcome our socioeconomic class and rise above to become an astronaut, but as my sociology class taught me that is rarely the case. Space travel is possible for the hopeful and rich, but it is an impossibility to everyone else.

So instead of chasing the impossible, I (like many others) watch the movie Apollo 13.

Yes, I realize that watching Apollo 13 is not the same as going into space, but I also realize it's a pretty good summary of what it would be like and it's presented in a way that's much more accessible. No one criticizes you that you're missing out on space when you watch the movie. Most of my friends can relate to my yearning for space travel and the brutal reality that's associated with it. Also, if you're not astronaut material, there's plenty of other space jobs a person can acquire along the way. Just because someone has never been in space doesn't mean they have less appreciation for it then the guys working the command center down on Earth.

Give the command center guys some credit. They have an interest and they tried to go to space. Extenuating circumstances prevented them from going.

Influential Book as a Child

I can't seem to pinpoint a single influential book that I read in my early years, but I can think of a genre that speaks to my passions. My dad always had non-fiction adventure stories of mountaineers and explorers from around the world. Books like Into Thin Air or The Endurance (A book detailing Ernest Shackleton who shipwrecked in the Antarctic). Come to think of it, most of my middle school reading at home was non-fiction. I wasn't even introduced to Greek Mythology until high school and we covered all of a few weeks of it. I've read Oedipus and snippets from various short stories, but most of that knowledge is filled in by Saturday morning cartoons. My parents come from semi-religious backgrounds, but we never went to church and thus I've never sat down and read the bible. Any knowledge of Christianity has come from pop culture and second hand information. These gaps in fiction have led to a large makeup to my agnosticism.

I know a rough outline of The Book of Mormon from this South Park episode. (It could be way off, but the South Park generalizations are usually close to the mark). And my mom came from a Mormon family! Half my cousins have been married in the temple in Salt Lake City and yet I know very little about it because my immediate family neglected to clue me in on the subject. That window to teach me has more or less passed though. I believe the general rule of thumb is that each person's religious knowledge is formed in elementary school. Some people are taught the Bible and they view the world through a Christian lens while others read the Koran and shape their lives around the Muslim culture.

Am I better off without having a predominant religious text guiding me through my childhood? Is it even possible to learn between right and wrong without reading biblical/mythological text? These questions sound perfect for Mr. Sexson, but I'm guessing he'll simply tell me to take his mythology and biblical classes to find out. I'd like to think I can get my moral fill from nonfiction. Let's see where it takes me.

Books, Real Life, and what you do with it

Ashley brought up some good points about reading books and traveling. She had an excellent analogy which compared television viewing to traveling in a car (lazy non-interactive, cushy experiences) while reading a book would be more like traveling in a motorcycle where you can FEEL the wind TOUCH the ground if you please. She ultimately argued we needed a mixture of both reading and traveling. Read her blog here.

I think it's a good idea to read books and gain knowledge from each individual context and culture that it highlights, but ultimately we should be experiencing life and doing so in such a way that WE write the stories for the next generation. Much to Professor Sexson's chagrin, I am talking about non-fiction, but we can of course be creative and write fiction based on our own travels and relationships.

This is ultimately the difference between a tourist who travels and from someone who travels and learns from the places they go and the people they meet. By writing about what we know, we can become teachers and friends to a whole new generation of literature 110 students. It's one thing to become an English teacher and teach the same Shakespeare cannon that's been taught for centuries, but it's whole different ballgame if you become an author that expands on a genre or invents a new one. But wait, you say, aren't you just recycling the same literary plots if you try to create a new category of writing? Personally, I think its much more creative to put your personal touch to something as opposed to teaching it straight out of the box.

So go ahead and read your books and travel to those distant lands. But if you're not writing about it, you're passing up an enormous opportunity to leave your stamp on literary history and the hearts and minds of future generations.

Found Poetry Take 2

I found some more poetry on the ingredients label of my Sweet & Salty Nut granola bar. I've structured it similar to the song 'Carol of the bells'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elAtcHU0iCU

Here are the Lyrics:

Carol Of The Bells

Hark! how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say,
"Throw cares away."
Christmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the bold

Ding, dong, ding, dong
That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling
One seems to hear
Words of good cheer
From ev'rywhere
Filling the air

Oh how they pound,
Raising the sound,
O'er hill and dale,
Telling their tale,
Gaily they ring
While people sing
Songs of good cheer
Christmas is here
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas

On, on they send
On without end
Their joyful tone
To ev'ry home

Ding, dong, ding, dong.

And here's my abbreviated version:

High fructose syrup,

High Maltose syrup,

Wheat, sugar, salt,

Wheat, sugar, malt,

Palm kernel oil,

Ca-no-la oil,

Sweet, salt, sweet, salt,

Yellows 5 & 6,

Total Carbs 6,

Red 40 lake,

Color blue lake,

Peanut, peanut, peanut, peanut butter,

Peanut, peanut, peanut, peanut butter,

Serving size 1,

Serving size 1.

Rough Sonnet

It was fall when we began to play chance,

Red, yellow, and orange sped by so fast,

Our lips touched and we began to dance,

Little did we know, it would never last,

Our hearts were so warm we went without shells,

But before we could settle, dusk had come,

My angst from that day could fill seven wells,

Each day that passes, I become more numb,

Snippets of our date have come here and there,

We talk of our lives as if things were just fine,

And then without warning, you seem to care,

You clutch my heart and forget it is mine,

I cannot see you as simply a friend,

I hope that one day we will cease to pretend.

This sonnet got dark really quickly. I seem to come off as this crazed-stalker, so I think I'll rewrite it in a lighter tone. Writing at 1:30AM probably steers that darkness. Thoughts?

Class Notes 3/5

-Should be finished by book 3 of brothers K by now. The book should be finished by the end of Spring Break.

-Write a 14 line sonnet

-rhyming pattern of a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g

-iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line)

-3 quatrains (4 lines) and a couplet

-intro, middle, conflict, conclusion

-DUE by Friday 3/12

-Find some "found poetry"

-make poetry out of text that isn't meant to be literature, i.e. street signs, labels, instruction manuals, warnings, etc.

-Continue in poetry section

Brittnee posted something very interesting in her blog on Saturday:

I thought it was so funny when the girl read the paper posted on the door. As I watched the professor's face, it looked as if he were a child waking up to christmas morning. He just looked so happy. I wish I would get that excited about reading a piece of paper done by a janitor posted on the door. (Read the whole post here)

If I may, I'd like to steal the expression, "Christmas Face" and use it as a goal for myself and as a challenge to the rest of the class. Think back to when you were a little kid and that wonderful expression you get when you open up a new present. We still get that face when we are pleasantly surprised, but in my opinion, it doesn't happen enough. Our professor knows about the Christmas Face and is probably teaching this class in part to lead us to our next discovery. If that IS one of your main goals Mr. Sexson, I'm on board.

Wouldn't it be surreal if we discovered something cool every day? We would become as giddy as a child on Christmas Day.

Found Poetry!

I found some poetry on the side of my ibuprofen bottle. Enjoy!

Alert!

Hives,

facial swelling,

shock,

blisters,

Stomach Bleeding!

The chance,

is higher,

if you:

Are older,

Have 3,

or more,

alcohol

-ic drinks

Take More,

Take More,

Do not use!

Right before heart surgery

Or after

Stop use and vomit blood!

Definitely stop use

and vomit blood.

Sonnets and Cop Outs

Wikipedia defined a sonnet as a short poem that in Italian means "little song". An English, or Shakespeare sonnet, is usually in iambic pentameter meaning that it follows a pattern of an unemphasized syllable followed by an emphasized syllable and is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme usually goes a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. Them poem itself is structured like a mini-story where the first quatrain is an introduction, the second quatrain establishes a theme or metaphor, the third quatrain presents a twist or conflict, and the last couplet is the conclusion.

Mr. Sexson assigned the class to write a sonnet by the end of our poetry section. This sonnet is then supposed to be sent to our significant other via the post office. Our professor gave us the option of sending it to our pet, but I see it as a cop out. For those of you who were awake in Monday's class, specifically the first 30 minutes, Mr. Sexson abrasively told us all that we were not living our lives to their full potential and that we were 'asleep'. I'm going to look past his horrendous prejudice towards our generation's lifestyle and take his side for a second. (Mr. Sexson, just because we don't read as much as you do, does not mean our lives have less meaning or less interest. We simply enhance our culture through ways of media that you are not familiar with.)

I don't believe that sending a romantic sonnet to one's significant other (A PERSON) or perhaps an object of one's affection (A "CRUSH") would have any negative consequences. In almost all situations the person will be flattered and probably even more interested in YOU as a person after reading a beautiful sonnet. You can even choose to write the sonnet anonymously, typed, and only use geralizations to conceal your identity.

Just think of it as an opportunity for us to 'wake up and live a little' our otherwise boring world that we all seem to be in.