Like Puzzle Pieces...

I realize that my blogs are often ambiguous. The subject is usually less centered on a particular event and more focused on an idea. Also, they are frequently convoluted and even esoteric, but that is because writing is an outlet of the mind, and my thoughts themselves are convoluted and esoteric.

I see English class as a class of thinking, not of writing. Sentences and words are simply a medium through which we conduct our thoughts. Consequently, I find it difficult to articulate my ideas not because of a lack of writing skills, but rather a lack of thinking clarity. There are so many ways to look at the world, and no two views, like puzzle pieces, perfectly align. I have created lenses influenced by books, people, and experience, and these lenses come together to form a contorted, spiraled, inverted, jagged point of view. As a result, I do my best to avoid firmly asserting any generalizations about life, knowing that I am likely to change my stance in the future.

As my perspective broadens, my lens twists and turns even more. I am searching for a way of living my life that makes sense to me, but maybe not having a rigid lens is the only thing that makes sense to me. On some level, I hope I never find the strength, wisdom, or ignorance to assert the true nature of life.

But then again, maybe this is all just some transient lens I am seeing through.

11/28

At first, I was shocked. My jaw dropped, and I was appalled-even disgusted. Siddartha's self-starvation, self-mutilation, and self-torture made me cringe in horror. However, this horror left as quickly as it had been incurred, and I realized he was simply carrying out his life in a away that made sense to him. Although I reflexively feared his actions, I saw there was only something to respect. He does what every sane individual in their life does (as insane as his actions may seem); he strives to achieve fulfillment. His spiritual journey may seem unorthodox through our cultural lens, but it does not make it wrong. In fact, his willingness to endure physical pain only strengthens my respect for him.

Weekly Blog 11/15

It's funny how few people take the advice to "live out your senior year to the fullest" until it feels like there's so little time and it's too late. It's hard though, seeing as how we are always watching the road ahead or the bumps in the road. When I'm not envisioning college and my future, I find myself focused on homework, tests, or being sick (i.e. the bumps in the road). Only sometimes do I take a moment to look around and see where I am. I really have taken for granted my life and all I have. Lately-meaning the past years-I have been fixed to this lens where everywhere I look there are only mirrors. In everything I look at, I see myself. Although not always at the fore, I have been watching to see how I fit into every picture. I think I'm starting to leave this view though, and the scenery on the side of the road is becoming clearer.

"Would you write on a deserted island?"

This week I was watching A Beautiful Mind when I was hooked by the line "Conviction is a luxury of those on the sidelines." I struggled with the line like a baited fish and could not stop thinking about it. Just as Hamlet struggles to exact the revenge he promised he would, I struggle to live by the beliefs I have always held onto.

As I climb the mountain, tremors shake the earth and I find myself falling. I grab at whatever I can, desperate to find something concrete that I can hold onto and believe in. The rocks loosen from my grip and the ledges offer only temporary support before the weight of my own self shatters it and pulls me down. I close my eyes, disoriented from this state of freefall, confused by up and down and the sky and the earth-the things I have always known. Finally I stop and open my eyes, and I'm holding onto something familiar. I'm back where I started, before the path became corrupted by jagged and obtrusive obstructions, and I was only dreaming. No scars, no broken bones, no pain. Under my daring and adventure is fear; it was hollow courage-nothing but bravado. I continue on right, marching to the beat of the drum. I only daydream of turning left and scaling the rough terrain.

Society's Net

Just as Mark Twain asserted that a person is only a product of society through Huckleberry Finn, Shakespeare does the same with Ophelia. Shakespeare's treatment of her can be described in a few words; she is a woman. As a woman in that society, she is simply a tool to be used by the men. For example, her father commands, "Ophelia, walk you here," and she quietly acquiesces, content with following a man's orders mindlessly because that's all she knows. Polonius uses her in whatever way he can to please the king and thereby ensure his own survival. Her culture traps her with a net from which she cannot escape the customs of society.

However, she is not alone. We are all products of society, and we are all bound by society. For example, even though most (but hopefully all) people now see the subjugation of Africans as highly immoral, if someone was born in the 19th century south, it would be unlikely to see him break from the norm and fight slavery. Just like Huckleberry, most would be confused about what action to take. Free will only allows one to navigate under the net; rarely does one break free from it.

Denmark's a prison

As I was reading Act II, I was struck by how archetypal Hamlet is in terms of adolescent emotion. He exhibits many of the same teenage angst type feelings that modern teens do. For example, he gloomily tells his friends, "Denmark's a prison." He goes on to complain about how it is so confining and how it is the worst place in the world. With a Shakespearean translator, Hamlet would sound just like many modern teens. This shows that as time changes, human emotion, and even human nature, does not. Human nature remains static throughout changes in language, culture, and knowledge. We are inseparably attached to our basic nature just as we are attached to our arms and legs. For this reason, I often find myself believing that things such as murder and war are not a result of society's influence, but rather an inevitable consequence of being human.

Gandhi and Hitler

This week, I ended my essay on law asking the reader, "Is pursuing one's individual moral or religious law justified if it comes at the expense of others?" I spent most of my essay looking at sources that said that religious law was supreme, and at the end I brought up this question. However, although I intended the question to be for the reader, I was also asking myself the same question. Sometimes I think that "you should do what is right," but "right" is only a subjective notion. People rarely agree on what is true or right. Furthermore, even if one believes that it is absolutely right to do something, it can easily come at the cost of hurting others. As Mary Stange said, terrorists do what they think is right, just as Gandhi, Hitler, and Martin Luther King Jr. did, too.