Our Creation.

Walt Whitman continues to surprise me. While reading his poems I realized how he uses simple words which are not very common in poetry and how the poems do what the author wants to show. By writing about simple and common things and using simple words Whitman is able to do this. He’s poems are unique, while reading you get the impression that Whitman wants you the reader to understand the way he thinks or views life, most of times he focuses in nature. “These are the thoughts of men in all ages and lands” (poem 17). He is generalizing about the world and at the same time including himself, as if his thoughts were everyone’s thoughts or he was trying to make that happen. Another way to look at it is to think of the world and how we have all created it. Even though different people have done different things than others, it is still the creation of all of us together. “If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing”(poem 17). For the creation to mean something we must all be a part of it.
Then again he talks about grass. “this is the grass that grows wherever the land is, and the water is; this is the common air that breathes the globes.”(poem 17). He is comparing us and our creation to the grass. “the common air that breathes the globe” is us the people, we are the grass that grows on the land, the same way we all together create. More than making the reader adapt his way of thinking, what Whitman does is express the thoughts of most of the people. Many don’t know this so he writes for everyone, for the common citizen, the American poet, that is a poet because he creates as Whitman creates. In the end they are all great poets because they share the same ideas, they are all “leafs of grass”.

Part Of A Whole

One may think that describing simple things is easy because the thing itself is very simple. Think about water, you know what it is but try explaining it to somebody and I can assure you won’t have anything else to say except it’s just water. Walt Whiteman states the same “A child said, what is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; how could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.”(Poem 6). There is no way you can explain a simple thing like this. You can describe it but not explain it.

Now think about poetry, you never understand a poem the first time you read it because of the complex words and the analysis you have to do to understand it. Walt Whitman is different. Reading Leaves of Grass I noticed how his poems have a unique style, they do what the author is saying. By using simple words to talk about simple things to make the reader literally understand what he is saying. I got the impression that the poems are not only saying one thing, but that each reader can get a personal meaning from his words and he usually leaves you thinking. “All goes onward and outward-nothing collapses; and to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.” Why would a poem that talks about grass end like this? It is also written as if the narrator had experienced death. It could be death or the end in a different way, in this case the end of the poem.

The title fascinated me “Leaves of Grass”. This again proves Whitman’s unique style. Trees have leaves, grass has blades. In class, we read an introduction to this book where Whitman talks about America and how it has evolved, they the Americans are the greatest poets and America has its separate pieces but it is still as a whole. Each state is different but together that form they great America. The different people not necessarily have to be Americans. That explains the title, if you think about America would be grass and the people that make it up would be the leaves meaning that they are not Americans. The book itself relates with the title, it has the different poems that together make up the whole book. Each one a piece and yet they are a whole.

Flaubert's Style

When referring to the style of an author, we would say that it is the way he or she likes to write and the way they portray their ideas. In Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Soul, he shows a unique style, one that includes a lot of description. “The outgoing tide exposed star-fish and sea-urchins, and
the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew
away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the
shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began,
it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a
large meadow shaped like a hippodrome.”(Chapter 2). Not only does he use a list to describe a beach in this case but also, by using words like sleepy and unfurled Flaubert personifies the words for the reader to get a perfect mental picture.

The use of punctuation especially the comma stands out in Flaubert’s writing. “Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under
the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then the city
would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the neighing of
horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be
distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-
stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in full swing, there
appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged peasant, with a hooked
nose and a cap on the back of his head; it was Robelin, the farmer of
Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came Liebard, the farmer of Toucques,
short, rotund and ruddy, wearing a grey jacket and spurred boots.”(chapter 2) Even though he includes a lot of description in this passage the use of the common makes the idea smooth and precise, again creating a mental picture of the description.

The structure of his writing also stand out, by dividing the chapters into long and short paragraphs he gives more importance to one idea and the uses pauses to start a new idea and describe the house. “then she left her house in Saint-Melaine,
and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her
ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its
slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow
street that led to the river.”(chapter 2). At a first glance, it may seem as if he used many words and the paragraphs look crowded, once you read you are left with the concise idea.

While reading you get the feeling that the story moves quickly, Flaubert makes this happen by jumping from one idea fast to the next one. His chapters start with the same idea from the last chapter creating the same effect.

Overall, in his writing Flaubert uses a variation in the length of his paragraphs and a lot of description to make the story move quickly making it fun and natural to the reader.

The Special Touch.

Let’s say that someone tells you to the read the book A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert. You ask them what the book is about and they tell you it is the story of a girl named Felicite and her tragic life. Would you liked to read it? I wouldn’t, it seems boring but I had to read it and I was wrong. The story may be simple but thanks to the authors style it becomes entertaining to read.

He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of
his wings were pink and his breast was golden. (chapter 4). The description of the parrot is simple and concise, nevertheless Flaubert is able to create a mental picture and we imagine the parrot as he is. There are various things that stand out about his style like the use of punctuation and pauses, the structure, and how quickly he changes from one topic to another but the most impressive is the way he describes. “Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid shook
her body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her whole
frame trembled. In a little while could be heard the music of the bass
horns, the clear voices of the children and the men's deeper notes. At
intervals all was still, and their shoes sounded like a herd of cattle
passing over the grass.” (Chapter 5). With simple words and in a paragraph that you read fast, Flaubert makes you experience what Felicite is going through. He does this all throughout the book giving the story as a special touch. Being the description the special touch giving each word importance, allows him to create the effect he’s writing had on the reader.

Taking of all this away from the story would leave it to be nothing in comparison, maybe just some words that are boring to read. With his description, Flaubert gives a meaning to the story creating images making it fun to read. The simple story of his Felicite is a way for him to show his style and for us to appreciate it.

It All Meant Nothing.

My mom loves to read. Ever since she started a book club with her friends she reads one book a month. Reading has never been my favorite thing to do but this year because of my English class I have read some interesting books I would never imagined I would read. They seemed interesting and weird because I always saw my mother reading the most common novels, the ones you would find in the tables at the entrance of Barnes and Nobles. So, the book I read also seemed weird to her. One day she asked me what I was reading, and I told her that I had just finished The Crying of Lot 49. as I told her the title she made a weird face and asked me “what’s it about?” I really had no idea, I had no idea I had just read a 152 page book and I did not know what it was about. I had to tell her something so I finally told her “it’s a mystery novel, about this woman, Oedipa Mass and how her she was left in charge of her former boy friends will. “But what’s the mystery Isabella?” “It involves a mail company and all the clues she finds about this secret mail company called Tristero. ” I saw, by the way she looked at me that she really did not believe so she left and did not ask me anything else.

Then, I thought the book ended but proving nothing. Could it really been seen as the end of the novel? The mystery as I had told my mom is never solved. We never know who the mystery bidder is. All we ever know is that by trying to solve this mystery she ends up losing everything she once loved. The novel ends with a pessimistic feeling, leaving Oedipa and the people that once were close to her distorted (http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6) for nothing. She gained nothing and lost everything in the end just to try to figure something out and in the end, she couldn’t.

The ending, odd and uncertain gives the book more reason to say it means it nothing. Pynchon does not wrap it up for us and explains in the end. He gives us more to ask ourselves. What next? But the truth is, nothing comes next because it all meant nothing.

The Power Of Words.

I think people underestimate the power of words, even I do it. Most of the times I don’t read a book because I now they movie is going to come out soon so I simply watch the movie later. Even if my mom and sister say that the book is a million times better. I have to say they were right. I recently read a book called Twilight and fell in love with it, the came out and as I watched it I could not help but think how much they omitted from the book. It was a good movie, but compared to the book it was mediocre. There was no way the movie could describe what a paragraph or even a sentence in the book said.

In the essay The, Sentence is a Lonely Place, Gary Lutz displays the respect and importance language has. He describes how he discovered the importance of words and personifies the words. “the words fizzed and popped and tinkled and bonged”. I saw it as a way to influence reader. The essay wants to give words and language power. This leads back to my example of the movie. A movie may be really good it, by representing the book in a literal way like Pride and Prejudice, still the book is more powerful because of the impact words causes. It may also depend on the writer, to be able to cause that impact on the reader you have to be able to write well. What I am trying to say is that I agree with Lutz, words are magical, and the way he writes this essay to show the power that language has. You never actually come to think about this until you read the essay. How Lutz plays his own example of how he became engaged with words makes you reflect that he is saying the truth. It is an interesting piece of writing that not only makes the reader reflect on what is said but shows how the author uses his own beliefs to write a great piece of writing.

Things Change.

Most of the books and movies we are familiar with have a similar plot. There’s a beginning, middle, and an end. In the beginning we are introduced to the characters and what the story line is going to be about. Then comes the climax when usually the bad thing or problem happens, the turning point and the problem are resolved.

The Crying of Lot 49 stared out like this. We are introduced to Oedipa Mass the main character of the story. She receives a letter leaving her in charge of her former boyfriends’ will. The middle of the book is everything Oedipa has to do to figure out the will. The mystery we encounter about the mailing company W.A.S.T.E, the clues she figures out and how she figures it out. Since I have not finished the book I don’t know how everything will turn out. Having read the second last chapter I expected that things would start to get organized, but this book continued to surprise me. Instead of getting better things got worse for her, Oedipa becomes a different person from the one we see at the beginning of the novel. “Where was the Oedipa who’d driven so bravely up here from San Narciso? The Optimistic baby had come on so like the private eye in any long-ago radio drama, believing all you needed was a grit, resourcefulness, exemption from hidebound cops’ rules, to solve any great mystery”(100). Her psychiatrist Dr. Hilaruis has gone crazy, locked himself in his office. She realizes that Mucho is addicted to LSD. Oedipa is becoming isolated from the people.

“And had gently conned herself into curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say hey, let down your hair.”(10). Remember how I said that maybe Oedipa wanted to be rescued from something? She feels like Rapunzel because she is trapped in her life and does not know how to escape. Every time worst things happen to her, instead of getting close to solving the mystery something happens that make her feels lost again, even more. Oedipa needs to be rescued from her own life.

Who knows, maybe in the last chapter things will get better for her. She may be rescued or her life may stay the same and she will become the Rapunzel that no prince wanted to rescue.

More Clues.

In chapter 3 we are introduced to a symbol Oedipa sees on going to the bathroom. “a loop, triangle and a trapezoid”(38). We did not know it’s meaning, but guessed it was a clue to the mystery we want to uncover. As the novel continues, the symbol appears even more:

1. When Oedipa goes to Yoyodine, meets Stanley Koteks, finds him doodling on a piece of paper, and he was doodling the symbol.
2. She meets an old man named Thor. He tells her a story about how he had a ring that belonged to an Indian, and guess what, the symbol was inscribed on the ring.
3. While Oedipa was looking through Pierce’s collection of stamps. She found it on the Pony Express issue of 1940. “there it was again, her WASTE symbol, showing up black. A little right of center”(77).
We now know that two things are for sure: the mysterious symbol is really the W.A.S.T.E and it looks like the Thurn and Taxis symbol.

From all the clues we are given in this chapter it easy to say that it is a mystery novel. Probably a satirical mystery and through all this Pynchon it aiming to make fun of something. Could it mail companies, a scheme of the past that was left uncovered, or mysteries themselves?

The First Clue Of The Mystery.

Today in class we discussed chapter 3. I was relived because I was in desperate need of explanation. In order to do so, we chose any sentence from the novel. “You are paranoid” (page 17). From reading the novel, we know the paranoids are a band Miles is in. First, we get the feeling of a double meaning here, the actual band name and Oedipa saying he really is paranoid person.

Why paranoia? This had to mean something. Could it be that maybe Oedipa herself is paranoiac? There are no reasons to think that, she seems like a normal person. I’ll tell you, if you keep reading this can change. Paranoia is a slowly progressive personality disorder marked by delusions, especially of persecution and grandeur (dictionary.com). One that Oedipa may start to develop. Her character or personality won’t change but everything around will start to mean something. The first clue that Pynchon gives us about this is “a loop, triangle, and a trapezoid”(38) the thing that she sees while going to the bathroom. There is no actual meaning or purpose for this yet, it may become more important later on.

If we think about the Da Vinci Code, the same happens. Ever since the professor meets the dead guys niece he starts believing more about the clues, bad things start to happen to him. He becomes paranoiac. All of sudden everything means something. Pynchon may be giving clues like this to start the solving of the mystery, that we the reader and Oedipa at the same time are discovering.

The End.

I have reached the end, the end of The Selfish Gene. I have to say this is not an ordinary book, it’s so different from everything else I have read. The way Dawkins talks about boring science terms makes you actually want to read, to see what he has to says. It is just so original. I remember how in the first blog I wrote about this book I criticized it just because it was about science. It is not the best book I have read because it is up to some point boring and confusing.

What else can I say, The Selfish Gene and in the end it was selfish. Apart from learning really complicated terms, this book made me realize how people are only selfish. I used to think there were some individuals that did care for others and were generous, apparently I was wrong. Those certain people are like that because in the end they will be benefitted by what they do for others. In other words, it’s altruism but as another way to be selfish. Even if we try to by altruistic, we can’t our selfishness end up winning, it it’s stronger because that the nature of the humans we go first than anybody else. We always have self interest “single genes cheat against their other genes with which they share a body” (236). Since our genes our like that, selfish for a same body, we are like that. “The success that a replicator has in the world will depend on what kind of a world it is- the pre-existing conditions” (265). In the end we are the ones who created this selfish world and Dawkins was trying to show us this and that we should “try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do. ”(3). After all it depends on us.

A Freud Like Image?

So as my last blog says, I just started a new book The Crying of Lot 49. It started out weird. It was hard keeping up with what the author was trying to say because there were a lot of ideas coming up. I basically knew 3 things. Oedipa is the main character, she was left in charge of her former boyfriends money since he died, know, starting chapter 2 she was leaving her city and going to San Narciso.

Many things come to my mind when I am reading. One of these is the title, why Crying of Lot of 49? I was sure about one thing, it had to mean something but what? I could not come up with anything but in my class we talked about the 1960 how this book may be around those times. Then the California gold rush came up, the 49’s football team. Does this ring a bell? It did to me clearly there has to be some kind of connection, lets hope we can figure it out.

In chapter 2, the sex scene described by Pynchon in page 29 really called my attention. The way he described it creates a perfect image. I know this has nothing to do with an important aspect of the book but as I read this part I could not help but think about my philosophy class where I had recently studied Sigmund Freud. With a complicated yet interesting way of thinking Freud talks about sex, and how this is an important part of human behavior. Paul Johnson, another thinker criticizes Freud by saying that he degraded the human by saying he was a sexual figure. Whether you agree or not depends on you, I don’t because agree because Freud talks about sexuality in a good way of the human being, saying it is an important part of our “ello, and yo”, something important for each individual.Other may see it as a way of man only thinking in women in a sexual way, again i disagree because even if this may be true in some cases, sexuality is an importnat part of every individual, its a necessity.

Quite a random thought I had there, but I just felt like sharing this with you.

Altruism. Another Way Of Being Selfish.

Today, as any other Sunday I went to mass. Usually I don’t understand the lecture that he gives but tonight it was simple. Is was about selfishness and the importance of being generous and give to others. I couldn’t help but think in the book I was reading in my English class: The Selfish Gene and how the main idea in it is how humans are selfish, and how we must become altruist. Dawkins has never mentioned this altruism directly he because “there is no altruism here, only selfish exploitation by each individual of every other individual” (168).

“The best policy is indeed to fly up to into a tree, but to make sure everybody else does too” (170) doesn’t reading this make you think altruism is possible? It is did to me, but I guess I got a little carried away because the only reason we make sure everyone else goes up the tree is because it is for our own good.

I read an article in the NY times that talked about economist and how they think that “the typical person makes rational decisions in line with its own self-interest.” (NY times). The article used the example of “what might look like a good old-fashioned interfamilial altruism may be a sort of prepaid insurance tax. ”(NY times). Proving Dawkins theory of a new selfishness. How for example adults visit their elderly parents to assure the inheritance not because they want to. They do but because each individual will be the one that benefits in the end.

I am not generalizing, not all people are like this, still it is interesting to see how not only Dawkins sees this way and how his theory is correct. It is sad to admit but we are selfish “survival machines” and our only motivation in being altruistic is if we are going to be benefited also.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20freakonomics-excerpt.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=selfishness&st=cse&scp=2

Simply Wierd.

The first thing I do when starting a new book is read the back cover. “The highly original satire about Oedipa Mass, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge”(The Crying of Lot 49) I did not know what I was getting into. Usually, after reading the back cover I get a general idea of what the book is going to be about this time I got nothing.

Thomas Pynchon starts off the novel telling us that Oedipa arrives to her house and finds a letter. After that I got lost in the story. Since I did not understand what was happening in the novel the names of the character began to call my attention. Oedipa, Mucho Maas, Pierce, Dr. Hilarius, Roseman do these names seem common? I could not help but wonder why Pynchon decided to use these weird names. Maybe throughout the novel they will have some significance, it could be a joke, or it can be just plain absurdity (in the back cover it said it was a satire).

“And had gently conned herself into curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say hey, let down your hair.” Why would Oedipa feel like Rapunzel? Dis she feel like she had to be rescued from something? Or is it just absurdity again? There are more questions that were left unanswered, hopefully they will be answered and my impression of the book will change. We just cant know with what will Thomas Pynchon surprises later on.

The Power Of Nice.

Nice guys finish first, shouldn’t it be “nice guys finish last”(202)? as I read chapter 12 I was facinated with the game prisoners dilema and how Dawkins applies it to animals and plants. The game is playes like this:
There is a banker who gives out the winnings to the two players. Each player has two cars, one labeled cooperate and the other defect. In order to play each player chooses one card and plays it face down on the table. The trick here is that our winnings depend not only in the card we choose but on the other players card. Since there are four card there are four possible outcomes.
Both players play cooperate: the banker pays each 300$
Both players play defect: the bankr fines both playes for 10$
Player A plays cooperate player B plays defect: the banker fines player A 100$ and pays player B 500$.
The fourth outcome is the other way around: the banker fines player B 100$ and pays player A 500$.
The conclusion we can get from this is that “regardless of which card you play,my bets move is always defect”(205)
You know what move you are going to make but you don’t know the move of the other player. When it comes to computers you can program them to play with a strict strategy. Using this examples is how Dawkins explains how nice guys finish first. Lets compare two strategies: the first one, is tit for tat this ine starts by cooperating and then copies the prior move of the other player. The other strategy is Naïve prober, this one “is basically identical to tit for tat except that , once in a while, say on a random one in ten moves it throw sin a gratuitous defectation and claims the high tempation score”(210) In a competion tita for tat will be the startegy that wins because it is a “nice” strategy but throughout the game you would think the other strategy the evil one would win. This happens almost with every situation in life, for example the bully. He is the strong one, the one everone fears so people do what he wants. But eventually he stops being the strong one when someone stands uo to him and ends up alone with no friends, therefor he looses.
A situation similar to this one occurs in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth want to kill the king, Duncan, in this case they are seen as the bad ones. As I said before they start of winning because they kill him and get want they want, the throne. This is how I thought things were, nice guys finishing last and the bad guy succeding, but as this chapter made me realize things are not like this, not even in Macbeth because soon after they had killed the king Lady Macbeth kills herself and Macbeth is also killed so the glory of the bad did not last long. I know can believe Dawkins idea that “even with selfish genes at the helm nice guys can finish first”(233)

Male Or Female?

The Safe Side.

I was not in the mood of writing a blog tonight. Still, as I finished chapter 8 I could not help but think how I for the first time I could relate to any topic this book talks about. Have you ever felt that a teacher has favorite students and that he bothers you just for no reason? Or that maybe your parents treat your brother or sister better than you? If you are a typical teenager then you may know what I am talking about.

Every time something like that happened to me I could not help but think why, why do they choose the others over me? This chapter talks more about the relationship between a mother and her off springs still what I was able to understand was that the reason for having preferences all refers back to the selfish gene. “She can do her genes more good by investing a fair proportion of her resources in her children”(127). When a mother chooses one son over the other it is because in the end the choosing of that particular child will benefit her more.

What we must think about this know is that when they choose someone over you it does not mean they are against you. It means that they are being selfish and that before thinking in you they consider what will benefit them and stick to that plan. At the end of the chapter Richard Dawkins states that “if there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we can not except it to be part of their biological nature”(139). We can’t expect it to happen but we can hope for it. There is nothing that says that we can’t be biologically generous. Still, to be on the safe side I do agree with Dawkins that it should to be taught because as we have seen genes and humans are more likely to be selfish in every aspect of life.

Totally Selfish.

Aggression can be defined as a behavior expected to cause harm or pain. Richard Dawkins identifies aggression between species as gene machines but he also states that “survival machines of the same species tend to impinge on each others’ lives more directly” (67) so then the most logical thing to do would be to kill our rival from the same specie. As I was thinking through this, the book asked me “why is it that all animals do not go all out to kill rival members of their species at every possible opportunity?” (68) That had never occurred to me before, I had heard of animals killing animals of their same species, but I never considered the fact that maybe we humans could do the same. The only answer I came up with was that we had not done, it was something that in our society was not considered good or normal.

According to Dawkins, we don’t do it because it may be worst for us. He uses a very clear example in the book that goes something like this: suppose that your enemies are C and B but B is also C’s enemy. If I kill B I am also favoring C by killing one of his enemies. This all goes back to selfishness and how in a way we don’t do this because it will jeopardize us. There is really no good point in killing our enemy because your other enemy may be gain from it instead of you. The author does not states this still I see it as way to relate to the title. We could kill other humans but we don’t because we are selfish. If killing one of our enemies benefits not only me but another person then I won’t do it. But what if killing my enemy would only benefit me, in that case we would kill our enemy. Wouldn’t we?

The author then talks about another concept. He shares Maynard Smith evolutionary stable strategy and how if a whole population id following one strategy that one is bets for the individual. Returning to my point stated above, humans are selfish, according to Dawkins we are selfish because of your genes so there has to be ESS for our genes in order for us to stop being selfish. This does not seem an easy task. I don’t know if it is possible at all, all I know is that it seems as the only solution until now.

Rendering Understandment.

I am going to be honest with you, I hate science although I find interesting I have never really understand it and it has always been my worst subject. So knowing that I had to read one chapter of The Selfish Gene tonight did not bring me much excitement, I was mentally prepared to concentrate a lot and still get lost in the middle of text. As Dawkins told me about DNA and the number of chromosomes we humans have I dozed of into space, I continue reading but all sudden the DNA talking stops and I am now reading about book and pages. I go back and read again because I was probably day dreaming but no, Dawkins was actually relating DNA to books on a shelf, “it is as though in every room of a gigantic building, there was a book-case containing the architects plans for the entire building.”(22) From the moment when I finished reading that sentence I wanted to continue reading and to see what other comparisons he would use and I would be able to understand.

In chapter 4 he surprised me again by saying “muscles are engines which, like the steam engine and the internal combustion engine, use energy stored in chemical fuel to generate mechanical movement.”(47) He compares our muscles and their function to machine to explain to us how these work. Later on, he compares our genes to computers and how both are programmed to the future plans without actually having to anything. Genes are given the instruction and will always control how are body is made, with this I understood that he wanted to prove the point that genes can control the behavior. I finished chapter 4 but the last thing he mentioned made me realize that this had to do with the title of the book and how we can be selfish not just because that is who we re or how we are raised but because of our genes.

Lastly, I want to thank Richard Dawkins for making me understand something about science with his comparisons, and I can’t wait to see with what will he surprise me next.

Memoirs.

- Bright light. Shinning on me?

- Shadows,hiding in the night.

- She,whom he loved: her, who loved:him.

- I have been there, I am there now.

- It goes up the comes down. There was light, it was dark.

The Selfish Altruist.

I never imagined myself reading a science book. Then, before I knew it I was at my desk ready to read page one of: The Selfish Gene. Before I even started reading the first world I could not help but think of the title, The Selfish Gene, The Selfish Gene I kept repeating those three words in my mind. How can a book about science talk about selfishness? Nothing came up so I decided to start reading.

Richard Dawkins starts off his book by questioning the scientists, asking “have they discovered evolution yet?”(Page 1). Even if Darwin did propose a theory for evolution nothing is completely true and still “”philosophies and the subjects known to humanity are still thought almost as if Darwin had never lived.”(1) There are still doubts unclear that nobody has been able to figure out. Reading this, I still kept thinking what it had to with selfishness when Dawkins answered my question and told me, “my purpose is to examine the biology of selfishness and altruism”(1).

Later on, the book talks about genes, how the body serves as a protection for these, and how the strongest gene is the one that in the end will live longer than the rest. All the genes in our bodies are rivals against each other they are in constant competition to see which one won’t die and in the end which will be the most numerous. This is another way of saying that genes are selfish and that can be one of the reason why “anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish”(4) because whatever it may be it will always strive to become the best.

If man was born selfish, how can it become altruistic? There is no way for us to change the genes so that instead of being born selfish we are born altruistic. I wish there was way so that each person would contribute for a common good and not a personal one. Dawkins also believes this but he does state “that we may then at least have the chance to upset their design”(3) What could it be?

Man Was Not Born To An Easy Life.

When we walk through our path of life, different current push as in different directions. These currents lead us towards decision making. They can be influences, experiences, anything that happens in our everyday life. For Candide, these currents are two characters: Martin and Pangloss. One embraces pessimism and the other optimism, and he yet remains in the middle, in the duality of these two different philosophies.

In chapter 21 we are introduced to Martin, a man who later on accompanies Candide through his remaining adventures. Like Pangloss, he is also a philosopher but he believes “that man was created by the forces of evil and not by the forces of good” (4) He is a pessimist that firmly believes that nothing good con happen and that work is the only thing “to make life bearable” (144) Pangloss, believes the opposite, “that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”(back cover) he sees all wrong that happens as if it were not important because in some way, that wrong has to be for the best.

Throughout the novel Candide lives through both of these philosophy as you could say man does throughout life. He mainly believes in Pangloss philosophy but then when he starts traveling with Martin he realizes how Pangloss was not always right and that Martin may have a point. While reading I asked myself what is optimism? And Candide answered that questions for me by saying “it’s the passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us.”(86) Then I thought that pessimism should be the passion for maintaining that all goes wrong when it goes right. With this definition it becomes clear that weather you decide if you think negative or positive that all depends on you. Take Candide for example, there were some parts of the story where he questioned Pangloss philosophy and others when he did not agree with Martin. By situations that he lived, and that is what happens to all humans, Candide was able to figure out that you can’t choose one extreme because in life there are going to be good and bad moments.

There comes a point where neither of the two philosophies is strong enough so they contradict each other. We must not go to either of the two extremes but be aware that in life we are encounter to encounter situations where both of these are going to be needed. In the end the only thing that is true is that “when man was placed in the garden of Eden, he was put there to dress it and to keep it, to work, in fact; wich proves that man was not born to an easy life”(144)

Voltaire’s Utopia

From the first moment we start reading Candide we are introduced to Pangloss philosophy that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”(back cover). As we continue reading we notice that where Candide lives and what he goes through is the complete opposite of what Pangloss states. In chapters 18 and 19, the characters reach a place called ElDorado where “the farmer and the landscape gardener had been equally busy in this countryside, and everything which served the needs of man was pleasing to the sight” (74). With this place is where Pangloss philosophy is reflected. “it is probably the country where all goes well”(77).

This place can also been seen as a utopia that Voltaire has created. A place where poverty does not exists and has “been sheltered from the greed of European nations, who have quite irrational lust” (79). He has created a place where there is no religion and no one is imprisoned. Even though Candide likes it there he still prefers to go back to where he came from. This brings me to say that that really a utopia does not exist, but each individual creates its own. What may be perfect for you may not be perfect to someone else. Candide agreed with the fact that everything in ElDorado was perfect, still he did not want to stay there because “I shall never be happy without Lady Cunegonde”(82) it is as if he’s utopia would be being with Lady Cunegonde.

Today nothing is a utopia but that is just what I think, for example Zhand Wei Wei professor at the Geneva school of Diplomacy and International Relations states in his article Eight Ideas Behind Chinas Success what he thinks makes China “one of the word’s largest economy”(NYT). He shares with us eight reasons that have made China become what it is now. In a way, what he shares is his view of a utopia because he feels that China is on some way perfect. For many people utopias don’t exist and they believe that nothing can be perfect, that there is always going to be suffering. Other people, likeZhang Wei Wei create their own utopia. That is up to us, weather we want to believe something perfect or face the fact that not “all is for the best”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/opinion/01iht-edzhang.html?scp=9&sq=utopia&st=cse

Monkey Business

When it comes to cherish love and marriage, the most difficult decision of your life comes to be. You decide who you will love and surrender your love towards that person forever. Love is an inflexible aspect of Candide, evoked mainly through Lady Cunegonde herself. She feels love toward Candide, and Candide towards her, but ends submitting her love to Don Fernando. This clearly shows how, according to Voltaire’s satire, women tend to follow the wrong decisions in love and marriage. They tend to marry the one who's richer, the one who has more quartering’s, the one who's stronger. But never the one who loves them more. In case of Cunegonde, Candide.

Through the use of monkeys, Voltaire clearly mocks this aspect of women's tendency of love. Practically saying, she will even marry monkeys before marrying him who loves her. Candide himself encounters the case: "Why should you find it so strange that in some parts of the world monkeys obtain ladies' favours? they are partly human, just I am partly Spanish" (70). The monkeys are completely absurd in the scene. But that's why, they play the role of boosting the Voltarie's target essence. Through them the satire becomes evident. The worst of all is that it is true: monkeys are partly human. Then, why not marry a monkey? If we marry people who are partly Colombian, partly American, why not marrying someone who is partly human?

Satire In Disguise

Somebody once told me that if while reading the book Candide I found it boring I was not getting the purpose of the book. To tell you truth I got worried because I was finding the book boring and wasn’t laughing like everyone else. All of this changed after I read chapters 13 and 14. “I am the daughter of Pope Urban X” (page 49) with this Voltaire is criticizing the hypocrisy of religion, how the Pope did not follow the churches rule by having a daughter and how he did not protect her from all the misfortunes she lived through.

Voltaire employs satire when he targets the aristocracy, “Governor, Don Fernando d‘Íbaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza a noblemen with degree of pride and appropriate to one who bore so many names.” (page 58). He mocks how this people always want to show how important they are and the amount of power and money they have. The hyperbole would be the long list of names. We find irony when the old lady tells Lady Cunegonde “you have only yourselves to blame if you do not become the wife of the greatest nobleman in South America with the most handsome of moustaches.”(59) this is both ironic and absurd, he is not the greatest nobleman man there is “he (…) assuming so imposing an attitude, and affecting such an arrogant bearing”(59) and the part about the mustache is random, is has nothing to do with weather he is a great nobleman or not.

Hence, satire is dominant through the essence of Voltaire's text. He employs it both directly and indirectly to target different aspects of society. In this case aristocracy. He has a target, now he ridiculizes the context in order to perform critique.

Living The Worst Or The Best.

Reading Candide chapter 12 twelve may me again think about in Pangloss philosophy. How “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. Candide believes on this philosophy and so does Lady Cunegonde, even though they question it sometimes because of bad things that happen to them. It’s interesting to see how still after the philosophy had been proved wrong they still believe it. Even the same Pangloss being hanged proves that that way of thinking does not work. “”If this is the best of all possible worlds, he said to himself, what can the rest be like?”(37) it is hard for them to imagine what can actually be good, if what is supposed to be good really seems bad?

The old woman’s story is a perfect example for this. She has gone through rape, slavery, and poverty. Has been able to experience human evil and that contradicts Pangloss philosophy and his way of viewing life in such an optimistic way. What can be optimistic of all that happened to her? Telling her story she mentions how many people wanted to kill themselves including her, “a hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more.”(57). This may be a way of Voltaire saying that really it is up to you what you want to do with your life. After all the suffering she gone through, the normal thing to desire is to stop living in that miserable world but for some reason she still wanted to live. We are the ones who choose if in life we see things for the best or for the best worst.

I see it as if Voltaire was teaching us that lesson, when really he is making fun of those who actually think “that all is for the best”(20). Those optimistic people who at some point are pathetic. In life there are situation where no matter how optimistic you are you have to accept that a negative outcome will come, and that there is no way that the outcome may be for the best, it is bad but it happened because that’s life.

Two Different Ways Of Telling A Story.

Two stories. Two different people: Lady Cunegonde and the old woman. One purpose: to criticize. From the beginning of the story we are introduced to Lady Cunegonde. There was love present between her and Candide from the beginning of the story. The old lady appears afterward helping Candide in his time of need when Pangloss dies.

This two characters are complete opposites. Lady Cunegonde is the daughter of the baron and a beautiful woman. The old lady is the daughter of the pope and ha had a hard life. In chapters eight through eleven this two woman narrates their different stories. All throughout hers Lady Cunegonde is complaining on how terrible her life has been. “but I have been so terribly unfortunate in my affairs, that I have lost almost all hope.”(page 48) knowing her life has been much worse the Old Lady states how unbelievable it is the way she complains. “You haven’t had misfortunes like mine to bear. I assure you.”(page 48)

Voltaire uses the Old Lady story to criticize the high class people and to show how they are always complaining about insignificant details when really there are other people that’s suffer much more. Sure want Lady Cunegonde went through was hard but compared to the Old Lady story it was nothing. Many times we don’t realize this because the only bad things that happen to us and to the people around us are these insignificant details, so we make a big deal about. When really people that aren’t in our society suffer much more complicated things. Voltaire could have tried to teach us lesson by this or at least make us come to reason and realize that we should not complain about what happens to us but instead be grateful.

Was All Really Desingned For The Best?

How can we live the best of all possible worlds when disasters happen to us? I admire those people who still after they have experience the worst have a smile on their faces and say that we have to appreciate life and be thankful. It would really help if people thought like that instead of never detaching the bad things and staying in the past. In the book Slaughter House-Five, this is what Billy learns to do. At the beginning it seemed weird that Billy addressed war in such an indifferent way, as if it was not a big deal. Towards the end I learned that Billy does this in order to detach from the horror he lived. The bombing of Dresden clearly impacted Billy’s life, but if Billy was not able to try and leave that behind in the end it would be worst for him, because he would be the only one that would be affected. By remembering that and focusing on how that ruined his life, he will forever continue to ruin it. Referring to war as if it were not important allows Billy detach from trauma in order to continue his life.

Pangloss is always saying how “all was designed for the best.” Since Candide admires him so much, he believes this philosophy. At one point an earthquake occurs in the book, and then comes another earthquake. It is at this point where Candide questions this philosophy. “If this is the best of all possible worlds, he said to himself, what can the rest be like?” (page 37). Candide saw how not everything was perfect and that bad things occur that harm people, but if this is the best then you would not want to imagine the worst.

Voltaire uses this to show how absurd it is to believe this. “But when it comes to my dear Pangloss being hanged-the greatest philosopher (…)”(Page 37) By living life based on this way of thinking Pangloss ends up dead. Ironic isn’t it? How the person that most encourages us to follow this ends up dead. We have to learn to be realistic, and that in order to live a fine life we must find a balance in what we believe. We have seen how thinking that everything is perfect may not always lead to the best. The again thinking about the worst and allowing memories to ruin our future also does not work, we must find a way to think positive in order to achieve what we want, knowing that not everything is perfect and that we actually have to overcome certain obstacles.

Now I tell you, we must continue reading Candide to see if he will still follow this philosophy or if he will find the balance between both.

It's Not His Fault.

Many times I ask myself if there is role for man in the world. Why God did put us here? Had he planned a special goal he wanted us to achieve? Who knows we will never know but we do know that many years ago man was placed on this earth and started evolving not because of God but be cause of himself. We are used to blame God for the things that happen, good or bad we find ourselves saying “if god wants to” or “because god wanted it to happen”. This is not true, things happen because we make them happen, in the end it is no one else fault but ours.

Pangloss believes how all “was designed for the best” but James did not agree with him and I agree with James. “Men, he said must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves.” We are not given our role for life when we are born but it is up to us to create one. We have the liberty to choose weather it be good or bad meaning that if something happens, it happened because of us, because we chose to be that way, we were not forced to and no one chose for us. “God did not give them twenty-four pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other.” (Page 31). We have the tendency to create evil thinking that it is for the best. We create guns for our protection but because of the creation of these, war and conflict arises since we have the resources to create it.

Those people that think that the world is a horrible place should think twice because it is in part their fault. As Jean Paul Sartre said “Everything has been figured out, except how to live life.” We were never given a handbook on how to live life on earth still we have to live it some way or the other. Unfortunately men trying to think for the best most of the times make decisions that lead to the worst. I am not saying that everything in life is bad and that all the choices made by men lead to the worst. We have made some great progress and discoveries we should be proud of. The way man has handled evolution is something that impresses me greatly. Nevertheless I cant help thinking how most of the times in order to me precautionary and protective we create ides that tend to shift and instead of proetecting us end up destroying us.

The World Is All Right, But

Some say this world we live in is a perfect one. Others say it is the worst, and then there are the ones that don’t care because for them this world is fine. To all of those people I say wake up. It is important to know that we don’t live in a perfect world. It is up to us to make our own world, the way we live perfect not forgetting that there are problems and bad things happening everyday that may affect us. Pretending that all is wonderful is worst for us because we are not prepared when bad comes to us.

Candid’s tutor Pangloss has the way of thinking that this world is perfect. Since God created the world, God is perfect, therefore the world is perfect. He taught to Candide “that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything is made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.”(Page 20). It’s funny how some people believe this and think that “all is for the best”. Voltaire is making fun of these people and their optimistic philosophy of viewing life. By thinking this way they omit the part that evil occurs in the world. God is perfect right, so why could he create evil? This proofs my point, every human being knows there is evil then, the world is not perfect. We deny this because of fear of facing the actual things that happen the bad ones.

It is absurd to believe the world is perfect when right now while I am writing this blog people are dying and families are suffering. Even if facing the real world is hard, it is better because you cannot go on your whole thinking nothing wrong can happen, because when it will the only person that will get hit by it is you.

Embrace Simplicity

Once I remembered a man telling me, “Every man must decide weather he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” As I heard these words in my mind I started to think, which would, I choose. The right one would be to go through the light of creative altruism, being unselfish and thinking of others. But I ask you, is it really that simple? I could say that my goal in life is not to be selfish, to think of others before myself but, when the time comes to put this decision at use, we realize it’s hard and most of us switch from one light to the other.

There are two types of selfish people. The ones that were raised selfish, the ones that won’t even lend you a pair of shoes. And the other, is inside all of us. The difference between these two depends on the situation, the selfish person will always be like that never generous, always think of himself, when the other one will be selfish when it is someone that is having a problem. Suppose your friends’ dog has dies, you feel sad for them maybe, but you probably say, that’s life and we have to move on. Now be really honest with me, would you react the same way if it was your dog the one that had died? No, of course you wouldn’t, what you would really be thinking is poor me, I am all alone without my dog, poor me. This is when that selfish person that is inside all of us comes out. It can come out, it is naturally for us to feel sad about something that has happened “But we should have remembered how we feel when we hear of the same thing about others.”(Section 26) Epictetus and I feel the same about this. There is nothing wrong in feeling sorry or sad for yourself, as long as when something terrible happens to someone else you remember how you felt when that happened to you instead of pretending you care and actually help that person. We may think that since everyone is like that they won’t mind if you’re attitude is apathetic, but they will and think that you simply don’t care about them.

The right thing is not the easiest thing to do, even so it should be the path we take in order to live a fine life. With simply caring more about people’s problems we come closer to that path we have been destined to follow since the very beginning of life. When being selfish, we are not living as we wish to live: we are asking others to live how we wish to live. We shouldn't punish others for our own choices, but just remember how we feel about them.

Dear Mr. Frost.

Dear Mr. Frost,

Many times in life you encounter a situation where you have to make a decision. A decision that is not easy to make because you may regret the thing you decide or because it will mark you for the rest of your life. Having read your poem The Path Not Taken made me think about this because the story you narrate represents how humans actually make their own decisions, in this case having to choose between two options. When the time comes for us two choose many things take over us and create an impact in the decisions we choose: our emotions, our rationality, and our freewill. In the end the decision we make is our own choice, even if some things affected us, we are the ones that make the decision because we are capable of it. As I said in my handbook “the things that are not up to us, are weak, enslaved, hindered, not our own.” Our decisions are up to us, that is why we must think well before deciding but in then end the choice we make is the one we want because our choice and judgment made us chose it. We should not worry about our decision and if we ever regret it we should remember that is was our own choice, therefore blame nobody but ourselves. Hope you find this letter enriching and up to some point agree with me.

Kind Regards,

Epictetus.

It's All Up To You.

When you look at a situation you always decide if it is negative or positive. When you are not sure, it is up to you the way you want to look at it. Some people are optimist others pessimists, and some say they are realist (which I find irrelevant). The way you decide to view at the situation depends only on you and your personality.

When people are always pessimists in the end its worse for them, because even the things that are possible they see them as impossible, so if they don’t help themselves first you will? When people are very optimistic it can get annoying and unintelligent because they believe anything can be done even when you know that the worst is ahead. Those people that at funerals say that you have to look at the bright side and think the person that has died is going to be with god. That can bother some people, especially me. I do not see the realist category as a real one because realists are positive people that have good judgment and know when something is possible or not.

Falling into extremes is bad that’s why Epictetus handbook says that “make yourself appear so to yourself, and you will be capable of it.” ( Section 23). The way Epictetus wants us to view this is that based on our judgment and the situation we decide how we look at it. It does not depend on weather you are negative or positive it depends on how much you want the situation to happen (or goal to be achieved). Rationality and emotion both play an important role with this, because in order to make the right choice you have to think real but in order to actually achieve it you have to want it.

Nobody is capable of making the perfect decision. Emotion may have a stronger effect one time or vice versa. That is human nature, something that is bound to happen, in some cases if things turn right you may feel as if the decision was perfect, to that I say it was luck or just maybe not a tough decision. The important thing is you make yourself believe you can do it in order to accomplish, never forgetting to be realistic.

Courage, Wisdom Or Both?

When we are born, our life starts to follow a path. While on that path there are things that depend on us and others that don’t. We have the power upon ourselves to change the things we can depending what we want. The other things, the ones that don’t depend on us we can’t change “You are foolish if you want your children and your wife and your friends to live forever.”(Section 14). Circumstances like the one just mentioned are things we have to accept, especially this one because death is the one thing we know for sure will happen.

Every man wants to achieve success, in order to do so we must stop focusing in the things we can’t change and give more importance to those we can. By doing so we learn to identify our strengths and weaknesses, learn from our mistakes, and set a goal we want to achieve. This thought rarely passes through our minds because most of us think of ourselves as flawless human beings, think we don’t make mistakes but other people make them and they simply affect us. So we don’t know what we need to change from ourselves in order to succeed. The first step we need to take for our goal to be achieved is accept we do have weaknesses, look past our pride, accept that the mistakes we have made in the past, have been because of us and no one else. Then look for possible ways not to make that mistakes again or correct it if the opportunity is still available. By doing so, we will grow as people and obtain greater success in our emotional and physical aspects.

All of this varies depending on the personality of the individual. For some people it is easy to accept their mistakes, others have so much pride that they think they are perfect are and what goes wrong is never because of them but always because of something else. These people never ask for forgiveness because we have the mentally that it was not our fault. In the end it’s harder for them because they are one step behind the others, and in order to accept their mistakes, they first of all, must learn that they do make them.

There are three situations in life: the ones you can’t change, the one you can and the ones that are not up to you. Reading section 14 made me recall this prayer I often hear: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” (SH 209). Even if it’s hard we must remember to live according to that prayer, and identify the things we can and can’t change and to know that neither too much courage nor too much wisdom is the best way to look at situations in life but instead a mixture of both.

There Is No Light Without The Dark.

People have different ways of viewing life. There are some that focus and try to create a way to achieve happiness and how to live a pure life. Epictetus was a Greek Philosopher that believed that “philosophy was a way of life and not just a theoretical difference.” (Wikipedia). To Epictetus all events were created by fate, we can’t control them, but we can accept them in a tranquil way.

When you’re life begins you start learning new things everyday. You see how people act and learn the values they teach you at home. Based on what you learn you start living life according to what you think it is right. I find interesting how some people, usually a long time ago, like Epictetus look at life based on their own perspective and by that they create a “handbook” or some rules we could that if followed you give you the result of a well lived life. It is up to you if you decide to follow this or not. By the way we have been raised, we follow some of these “rules” in a broad way because I see most of them as the basic of an educated life. However when reading the Handbook you understand more some mistakes you may make. In section 5 it states “What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgment about things. ” (Section 5) Many times we get upset with something or someone but we never seem to think that what may affect us is the result of the thing. If we actually take that into account we could avoid problems and conflicts in our life.

“The things that are not up to us are weak, enslaved, hindered, not our own.” (Section 1) We have the power to do what we want and create our life the way we think is right, which can be wrong. We have power over ourselves, so we must not let anything take over and force us to do what we don’t want to do. These people, in our case Epictetus what they do is to try and make us understand how we humans have enough power in order to live life the right way but it depends on how we use that power. It all comes down to a choice between right and wrong.

When we read Slaughter House-Five, we get to know Billy Pilgrim as a character. He fits into the teachings that Epictetus tries and make us learn because Billy has the power to choose right from wrong, for him he had chosen right but afetrward he realized it was wromg because he he did not agree with the decesion he had taken and was not satisfied with the life he was living. Billy does not blame himself for hating his life at the moment, which he should because he was the one that made those decision. Instead he blames the outcome of his life, that is exactly what the handbook says we must learn not do because in the end the outcome of the problem in this case Billy lifes is caused becasue of Billy so in the end it is the same thing as blaming himself.

The End Does Not Justify The Means.

Slaughter House-Five was a book that makes you realize how war does not make sense. Vonnegut tells this story in a different way not using the usual structure of climax, introduction, etc. Throughout the ten chapters of the book he skips from time and place narrating different experiences that happen to Billy during and after war. “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 22). The first time I read that sentence I did not understand what it meant, know I now that is was Vonnegut way of warning us that he was going to narrate the novel in a nonlinear way.

Billy had come unstuck in time because of the impact war had left on him. When it was over he was lost in his life because he saw no meaning in it. By narrating the novel in a nonlinear way Vonnegut gives Billy a “second” chance to give meaning to some of the moments in his life, allowing him to travel back and forth to them.

“So it goes” appears too many times in this novel. I noticed how almost always when something that was related with death was mentioned, the paragraph ended with “so it goes.” “ In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is dead. So it goes” (Vonnegut 143). I was told this is an anti war a book but then I asked myself: if this is an anti war book why does Vonnegut talk so carelessly about war? It is another way to show us how war I pointless because even if war does happen and many people die and cities get destroyed life will go on. It’s kind of a way of saying whatever, it does not matter. What the point of having war if life still goes about after it.

I finally understood why the called it an antiwar book. With the way Vonnegut writes his novel. The details he includes in it and how he gives more importance to insignifact things like going to New York to talk on the radio instead of the actual bombing of Dresden sends that message that war does not make sense because life goes on after war.

In the end whatever happens life goes on. “So it goes.”

There Is No Good War Or Bad Peace.

All throughout history we have seen how disagreements between countries usually end up in war. When it’s over we realize the damages they cause and sometimes even regret that we started it. Then again another argument comes along and we fight causing damage, again. Society knows that war is bad but somehow we see it as the only way to make a point. People today are so greedy that they always want more. For them, war is a way to show how much power they have so every time they have a chance to show that they’re going to use it.

If someone asked me the question: is war justified? I would say no it’s not. The way I see it war is useless because even if the problem at the end is resolved the damages it leaves after it are much larger. Not only that but innocent people or even countries that have nothing to do it may end up jeopardized. Of course it is easier to say this than to do actually do it, because what could be simpler than throwing a bomb at a country that does not want to agree with you? It is the easiest way and apart from that if you win you end up with more power. Still I feel there has to be a way in which we could try to avoid war and violence.

In Slaughter House Five we come across the bombing of Dresden and how Vonnegut tells us about it. In chapter nine Billy is talking to a professor " 'It had to be done,' Rumfoord told Billy, speaking of the destruction of Dresden. 'I know,' said Billy. 'That's war.' 'I know. I'm not complaining.' " this show how another point of my opinion. In some cases war does have to be fought because it’s really the only way to solve the issue, still this does not justify it. Just because it has to be done does not mean it should.

The way Vonnegut talks about war does not quite let us know if he (Billy) justifies or does not justifies it. By saying “so it goes” very often throughout the book he gives us the message as if he does not care, more like a way of saying “whatever” yes it happened but what can be done about it. Then again seeing the trauma that resembles in Billy because of the song (chapter 8) shows that Billy was affected by it, hence it can also mean that Billy does care about war in negative way only he does not know it.

You May Say I'm A Dreamer, But I'm Not The Only One

I’ve tried to keep my dreams alive as I journeyed through my life. But then I’ll find no difference between dreams and reality. There will be a moment in my life constructed by my dreams, or my dreams would be just part of my life. My conscience will constantly tell me. “Dream as if you’ll live forever, dream as if you’ll die today.” My death will never be a problem, for as when I am dead. My dreams and life will all be gone. With them gone, I’ll have no problem identifying the difference between these two parallel streams in my journey. The problem is, lately I’ve considered death as only a status of “illness” of the human beings and not the end. If I never die I won’t ever find the difference between dreams and reality. At least I don’t have to worry about a third character in my doubt, as Billy Pilgrim does.Not only does Billy lives and dreams but he also time travels. How can we know which of these are the actual moments of Billy’s life? Vonnegut creates a difference between the “true” time travel and the actual dreams. “Billy was unconscious for two days after that, and he dreamed millions of things, some of them were true. The true things were time travel. ” (Vonnegut, 157). It is as if his time travel were dreams of his true life, because they happen but at the same time they don’t. Billy does live these moments again when he travels in time, he knows he does and we know that too because he narrates it to us but then again time travel does not happen. In this case it is a part of Billy’s imagination and trauma caused by war that he wishes he could fix. And by time traveling he makes himself believe he can do it.If we look at it one way, we could say the whole book is one big dream in Billy’s head. One dream that has a mixture of both reality and fiction. He (Billy) is telling us his story at war but apart from that he includes or mentions things that don’t have to do with it. Meaning that part of it is true when some portion of it id not. That is why for Billy we could say it is more complicated. I only have to decide weather it’s a dream, did it really happen, or was it a mixture of both. When with Billy its hard to tell if he actually lived it the way he tells it, was it all just a real dream that did not happen, or was it time traveling because Billy wanted to give meaning to that part of his life? In some cases we may know the answer but in others we are left with the doubt to know what it really was. For me it could be a dream, and for you it could be the real thing. We only have memories of the past. Billy has memories of his past, present, and future “Billy with his memories of the future, knew that the city would be smashed to smithereens and then burned-in about thirty more days. ” ( Vonnegut.151) so its harder to know what he dreams or what he lives because what at first was a dreams could become a reality he could encounter later on. Was this all just a dream, or did it really happen?

A Secret's Past.

When we keep secrets to ourselves, they die. Throughout history many people might have died with a secret they have never revealed. This did not happen to Billy Pilgrim. In chapter 8 he reveals to us what may seem to be the books biggest secret: the bombing of Dresden. Billy is at his anniversary when he hears a song “Really-I’m O.K and he was, too, except that he could find no explanation for why the song had affected him so grotesquely. He had supposed for years that he had no secrets from himself. Here was proof that he had a great big secret somewhere inside, and he could not imagine what it was. ” (Vonnegut 173). Hearing the song made Billy realize that after all his life he was keeping secrets from himself because there were parts of his life he did not like or wanted to remember.

Billy Pilgrim knew perfectly that he had been a war prison in Dresden and that he was there when the city was bombed but he never realized that trauma it had left on him until this chapter. “They looked liked a silent film of a barbershop quartet. ” “So long forever they might have been singing. Old fellows and pals; so long forever, old sweethearts and pals-God bless’em-” (Vonnegut,178). Hearing this song made Billy remember the night Dresden was bombed and how the soldiers that were not killed could have been singing this song in mourning of all of those who had been killed.

All this time Billy had kept this big secret to himself, he could have seen it as escape, a way to avoid the war from hurting him more than it already had. In this case, the song made the secret come out from Billy letting us all know (the reader and the same Billy) that war had affected him more than what we though it had. It had left a trauma on him. “You looked as though you’d seen a ghost” (Vonnegut 173). The ghost of his past, the ghost of Dresden that will always haunt Billy.

Same Words Adressed Differently.

After reading this blog I remembered about something we had learned in class the other day, we learned about register or in other words the words choice you use when addressing a certain audience. In this blog they talk about two words: many and lots. By reading the examples stated in the blog I realized that these two words mean the same thing. What they are trying to show to us here is when to use either one of them. this is when register comes in, depending on the audience you were addressing you would either choose many or lots. I would say lost is more informal therefore would be used when addressing an informal audience like family of friends, when many is more formal so it would be used with a different audience. This can be easily understood with the word hi. If you were talking to your friends it would be hey compared to talking to a teacher it would be hello.

The Question Answered.

As life in this book has no beginning, middle, or end, there is no such possible way I can begin writing. Maybe I already started or ended now one will know. All through the book we know that Billy Pilgrims travels in time. You could be reading about Billy in an optometrist convention and then all of sudden he may be entering his Dresden Slaughter House. While I was reading I took this into account but I always thought that is what simply the authors way of writing the book to entertain his audience.

Why does Vonnegut choose to write his novel in an order that id not chronological? We knew there had to be a specific reason and not only because he felt like it. After thinking why Vonnegut would do that we came across a part of the novel. “ Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, has a shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European History, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes. So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help. ”( Vonnegut, 101). We knew already that Billy Pilgrim had gone to war and that this had caused a great effect on him. What we didn’t know what that this was the answer as to why Vonnegut wrote his novel in a none linear way. He wrote it in disorder to show the post war stress Billy had and how he felt his life had no meaning. So by making Billy travel in time from one moment of his life to another could be seen as a way that Billy is getting a second chance at his life in some aspects in order to give it a meaning.

This causes an impact to us as readers because at the beginning it was simply unusual and we did not understand why Vonnegut had done this. Now that we know or have a small idea of why he chose to write the novel this way we may see the story in a different way, and realize that what he may be narrating may mean something different to Billy therefore we as readers should understand it in a different way.

Narrating The Story Of A Narrator.

Generally when we read a book we know who the narrator is. While reading Slaughter House-Five I was confused because it seemed to me as if three people were narrating the same story. Those three different people were: the author, Billy in the present
(The one that lives the actual moments) “I like the way you are”(Vonnegut,121) and Billy in the past ( the one that tells the story of Billy in the present) He hadn’t told anybody about all the time traveling he’d done”(Vonnegut 121).

As I continued to read I recognized how the three narrators where really the same person. The author Kurt Vonnegut and how Billy Pilgrim may be a representation of him. “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.” (Vonnegut, 125). This quote implies that he is the same person telling the story from three different points of view as if he (the author) did not want each of the three to interfere with each other because each of them saw life in a different way. From the beginning of the novel Vonnegut comes straight forward to say “All this happened, more or less. There war parts anyway, are pretty much true (Vonnegut 1) so he is saying that what he is about to tell us really did happen, more or less.

The main question that we ask ourselves then is why, why does Vonnegut change his story in war adding this weird things like aliens. I say that we won’t ever know the real answer of this we can say that it was maybe because he wanted to but that would be very simple. He may have done this because war for him was not a proud moment of his life not something he would want to remember but the again he is writing a book about it. So in order to change and in some way make more interesting or worthwhile for him that moment of his life Vonnegut may have added these weird aspects to his story.

The Curiosity Of Time

This is my 37th minute starring at my computer screen trying to figure out what to write my blog about. Time passes and I still don’t know what to write, I get the idea of time. Time, again time. Thus far in the four chapters I have read, time always appears in them creating a different effect. Throughout the chapter, time appears when Billy sits down to watch a war movie and he watches it backwards. While reading this part, my mind shifted to a movie I saw recently called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and how he is born an old man, and lives his life backwards then dies as a baby. Vonnegut takes us through the description of the movie as Billy sees it. If we were to watch it forward it would be a movie about American Bombers in World War Two but seeing it backwards gives it a whole new meaning. It changes the moments the reflect war so they can reflect peace. “The minerals were then shipped to specialist in remote areas. It was their business to put them into ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody again.”(Vonnegut 75). This is a part of the movie that Billy sees as he watches it backward so we can see how instead of using the minerals to fight and destroy their enemy, they are not going to use them: they are going to take them away so they can so no harm.

As Billy continues watching the movie he imagined “everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed” (Vonnegut 75). Even though this does not really happen in the movie it can also be understood as a way to see how watching the movie backwards changes the meaning of it, and how chronological order has it purposes for the cause and effects it creates. It also contradicts the thought that moments are organized a certain way and can’t be changed no matter how you watch them. This example proofs this wrong because Billy is watching the moments of the movie in a different way, and hence he is able to change the meaning of it by making war-like moments reflect the complete opposite.

Even if I still have more than half of this book to read this chapter made me realize how the author may try to play with time again in order to change the meaning of the events that will occurs in the novel. As it happened in the movie, this man lives his life backwards to the fullest that fact that he is born and old man does not affect him but does affect the lives of the people around him making it change the typical way in which we see life.

Destiny Is Written.

People often undergo situations in life that later marks them to what they may become in the future or what may become of their life. As I said in my last blog wars are events that may leave an impact on the people that go through them. Through war, Billy Pilgrim encounters indignity through the deaths he is close to suffer, and his tedious experience in the war floor.This indignity leads him to lose interest in life due to his inability to find what he is really looking for, causing him too look for that missing aspect in his past and future memories. “Billy wouldn’t do anything to save himself. Billy wanted to quit. ” (Vonnegut,34). This sense of apathy towards life is the cause of the constant recurrence of his memory flashbacks. Finding in them what he can not find in his life. He recurs to the past where he is more alive, where in the present he is living dead.

According to Billy “they can see how permanent all the moments are and they can look at any moments that interest them.” (Vonnegut.27) meanings they are the Tralfarmadorians and Billy shares there point of viewing at the world because he too can recur to any moment when he wants. I can infer that Billy belives that because in some way he is not content with his life at this moment and regrets some of the things that occurred to him. Even though moments are eternal, and once they're gone, are gone forever, Billy's fate in the real life won't be affected by the experiences lived in these memories. Because destiny is one thing that can't be changed: the bird's song at the end of the war is the destiny of the book, and therefore can't be otherwise.

In the movie The Butterfly Effect Evan, with the use of his diaries tries to change his destiny by going back into his memories. What he wants all the time is to be with the girl he loves but every time he manages to be with her something bad happens at the same time. This is because it is his destiny not to be with her and therefore he can’t change it. So at the end he realizes that the only way that his life is going to be at peace is if he is not with her. In Slaughter House-Five no matter how harsh or beautiful the war is the books destiny is already written. It will end with the birds singing.

Time Is Everything.

I am currently reading Slaughter House-Five. Even tough I am only up to chapter three I have really noticed how time plays an important part in the book I would even take the risk to say that the book revolves around time and the effect it creates on the character Billy Pilgrim. As we start reading we see how the book shifts from one place to another narrating different moment of the characters life. “Billy closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in World War Two again. ” (Vonnegut,58). I see this as a way for the author to show us that war and what Billy went through has marked him for the rest of his life because almost always when we reading about Billy’s life the author makes a connection (through time) to war.

The fact that the author includes the Tralfamadores also links to the matter of time. “He hadn’t been missed, he said, because the Tralfamadorians had taken him through a time wrap, so that he could be in Tralfamadore for years, and still be way from earth only for a microsecond. ”(Vonnegut 26). This gives us a view of what may be going on in the characters head and how he is not fully aware of the present time he is living in because for him he also live in the other planet where time is measured differently. So it is as if he lived in two different worlds at the same time.

Another detail that relates to time with this book is when Billy says “Where have all the years gone?”(Vonnegut,57). With this quote we can assume that Billy is not content with his life. Sure, he has lived and is aware of that but he still wonders why and where they have gone, because he does not like the outcome that became of those years. It is as throughout the book they are trying to show make us understand how Billy would like to change time, to go back and live again but he can’t change the past nor the future(his destiny) and has to live the present.

War:The Worst Enemy Of Humanity.

Humans have many enemies. If we consider it, each person fears different things or has their own reason to hate something or someone. We usually only understand our hates and not the ones of the others because generally we had a bad experience regarding that thing we dislike. It is hard and sometimes impossible to stop that hate or fear we have since it has marked us greatly and because of this we are often closed to view other realities in life that may be a bigger threat to us.

War is one them, since war is generally going on in our world we think that it’s something quite normal or just something that is bound to happen but we don’t actually quite realize that war brings severe consequences. We think of war as an obsolete aspect as if the only wars were from the past the ones that left an impact on humanity today like world war 2 and the 100 years war, it is as if we consider ourselves to civilized to be able to believe that those wars may happen again. By being focused so much on our own fears and enemies we don’t realize how we encounter war every day and the consequences it has against us. As Plato said “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Meaning that war really never ends it is always among us it only ends when we end because then after we are not able to see it any more but that does not mean that it is not there. So war is always going to be among us no matter what we do or regarding what in this world there will always be some war of some kind, there is nothing we can do to stop but as humanity and in order to think best for all there may be some things we can do so that it does not affects us so strongly, in orders words to find out a way to decrease wars effect so that we can stop seeing war but that way not being death. As I said at the beginning that war is one a big enemy that humanity has and I think that because war even if does not affects us directly, it destroys us by creating a competitive and violent world that is not good or pleasant for anybody to live in. Most of the times we don’t realize this since we live in our perfect society where we don’t really care what’s happening outside.

In the first chapter of the book Slaughter House-Five I could see how the characters life was marked by war in immensely. As he was talking to his friend they are saying how neither of them can remember anything good about the war that had been in. Most importantly I could relate this topic to Mary the wife of the characters friend and how she simply was mad at the character for going to war. I see it this way, the reason that her husband went off to of left a mark in her of worry and suffering to think what could happen to him. Then that trouble became fear, fear of how maybe her children would be influenced by it. “It was the war that made her so angry. She didn’t want her babies or anybody else’s babies killed in war.” In this case war became her enemy because it gave her a permanent concern of how war may influence not only her children but the entire world.

Salvation:The Key To The Doors Of Confusion.

While reading Dantes Inferno we come across two different Dante’s, the narrator (the poet) and the actual character that travels through the Inferno. Dante the poet uses the character as a metaphor of the journey that every human being must overcome in order to reach God's salvation. "When I had journeyed half of our life’s way I found myself within a shadowed forest for I had lost the path that does not stray" (I. 1-3). The fact that Dante writes this quote can mean that every human being has the correct path they have to take although some may get lost. We can also think of this as if Dante had written in plural meaning that he is not only talking about himself but all of humanity. Through the characters journey into the circles of Hell, Dante the character must learn to stop feeling pity and sorry for the people that are in Hell because for some reason those deserve to be there. At the end journey through Hell Dante achieves the level of moral standards in order to begin his new journey to God’s salvation.

The ultimate proof of Dante is reflected at the end of Inferno “My guide and I came on that hidden road to make our way back into the bright world and with no care for any rest, we climbed-he first, I following-until I saw, through a round opening, some of those things of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there that we emerged, to see-once-the stars. ” (XXIV. 133-139), with this quote we see how he found his lost path that was not really lost but was in the shadows, he saw again what he already knew the beauty of Heaven (it was not the first time he had seen it), it states that Dante also sees the stars which means guidance and illumination. Dante was confused but know by this we see that he learned and found his path to God salvation.

The path that Dante follows is the same as humanity so if I were to continue reading Inferno I would infer that as long as humanity has a clear vision of the right path they will find Gods salvation even in the darkest places of Hell.

The Flawless Land

Among this place where fairness sways
within the souls of those who deem
before the path of many ways
avoiding the control of some regime
that limits the freedom and choice
to believe that we don’t live a dream
but submerge ourselves into our very voice.
Integrity creates a vision of the perfection
that lays beyond a feeling of global rejoice
We set a society creating a connection
with the hope of achieving destiny’s desire
of a society that provides eternal protection.

When Love and Hate Collide

Poetic justice can be defined as a punishment for a vice usually in an ironic matter. While watching this episode of The Twilight Zone I came across some examples of poetic justice. At the beginning the episode takes place in a town, a town that had been destroyed by war, we see a women appearing she finds a can of chicken and eats it, then a man arrives he can see how their uniforms are different and he slaps the woman leaving her unconscious on the floor. Then the man and women interact some more comes my first impression of poetic justice, this is how when the video starts the man and women are each alone but then they start interacting, and in the end of the video they end up together, that being opposites; alone and know with a companion. As the video continues that two characters interact much more with each other in a positive and negative way also, but the towards the end the video makes a twist and suddenly what I was watching may be seen as a love story since the man and woman are showing some kind of affection against each other. With the twist the video creates comes my second example of poetic justice this being between love and hate, how in the beginning of the video the feelings these two have for each other is hate because they are enemies, but at the end the hate becomes love, I see this as poetic justice since love and hate are two complete opposite, they started feeling hate and as the story shifts that hate turns to love.

Finally I think this whole video has a big example of poetic, mainly starting with how the men and women interact, since during the video their emotions change. They start off with hate, and then I can say they become friends or more likely not enemies, after that we can see hate and competition again but to finish off it becomes love that as I said before it’s the opposite of hate. It is as if the two characters understand that in the end it will be better for them that way instead of competing.