Ideas vs. Reality

Ralph Waldo Emerson discusses how Shakespeare's characters are more than just a fictional person who go through fictional problems and meet fictional people from a variety of time periods: they are alive.  But how can one man (in this case, William Shakespeare) create hundreds upon hundreds of characters who have real life issues and real life personalities make these people so relatable and believable?

In my opinion, Shakespeare created his characters based off of those whom he knew and watched.  In my mind, I see Shakespeare as a man who sits with a pen and paper and writes down the characteristics of those whom he meets or finds interesting on the street.  The characters that we meet through his plays are too relatable and have problems that society faces everyday -- and to fit all of those different archetypes (i.e. King Lear, Kent, Edmund and Edgar) into one show with characters that he completely invented off of the top of his head, I consider almost to the point of impossible.

For instance, King Lear -- a man with many fears and troubles, desires and needs, whose life takes a turn for the worst; is obviously one who can be related to.  His desires are not met when his youngest and most lov'd daughter remains silent when asked to describe her love for her father -- therefore, banishment is in order.  His needs are not met when his two eldest daughters betray him and order him to leave and never return to them again.  His fears and troubles come true when all that he knew and once was his is falling down in front of him -- starting with Regan and Gonreil's death.
A character so detailed and dynamic as King Lear would take years and years to process and to make perfect.  I don't believe that Shakespeare had that kind of time, considering the numerous amounts of plays he wrote during his life.

I believe that his characters were based off of people that he interacted with on a daily basis -- but their personalities and problems were exaggerated to a dramatic level; sometimes in the form of comedy, tragedy, or a mixture of both.

Reflections: Relating to Biff

Biff and I could be twins; in pressures and in a couple scenes that occur throughout the play.  Willy is always pressuring him into doing what Willy wants and what Willy sees for his son's future: but, Biff wants something different.  He doesn't want to be a salesman, he wants to be a shirtless farmer out in the country.  Willy has goals for Biff: he's going to successful and he will be the best.  Biff doesn't want that.

I can relate.  My dad is great.  He's smart and definitely knows how to "father."  He is quite successful and wants the same for me and my older sisters.  He has these fantasies, and if they don't go his way, then he gets upset and tries to change how the future may turn out into what he pictures it.  This is sometimes a problem.  He pictures me going to a particular college, and yes -- he has a point, i can get in and it has all of the classes/minors/majors that I want in a college -- but so do other colleges.  I don't think he sees that.  "Oh, the University of Utah is great! It has all you want and it's only thirty minutes away."  It is great, and it would be a amazing college to attend; but that's not my top choice and I don't think my father understands that.

Spook

SPOOK

by: Mary Roach

     "What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that -- the million-year nap? Or does some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?" Apparently I'm really getting into these philosophically questioning books about what occurs after death. Who would have thought? The atheist fascinated by the afterlife! Irony. I guess, in that sense, Mary Roach and I have a lot in common.

    What fascinated me about Spook was how one who had not spent years investigating the claims could seriously believe some of the things she investigates. She talks about the dangers of being too skeptical or dogmatic and of the virtue of having an open mind because, if she is being honest, she hasn't studied this stuff at all. In fact, the way she writes about some of her adventures, the reader can identify that she doesn't believe what some of the people she encounters say.  These characteristics help her in being able to interview people with no judgements toward their story. 

    Roach utilizes her abilities to travel around the world facing different situations and different people along the way.  Though she doesn't believe everything she is told -- she is able to write a fascinating story about the person involved in the life after death experiences.  She incorporates their emotions into her story while still revealing her true intake on what is being said.  

    Though slow and a somewhat tedious book to read, Spook intrigued me with it's differing tones, fascinating adventures, and compelling yet thought-provoking stories.  It questioned what I believed and showed strange evidence of peoples lives being twisted and churned because of what they thought to be their reincarnation.

Life After Life

Life After Life 

By: Raymond M. Moody Jr. M.D.

I am an atheist. Therefore, I believe in no afterlife. But a question that I dwell upon frequently would be one that everyone thinks they know, but do they really? Is there life after death: or does the natural intention to believe in something to calm our nerves about circumstances unknown take over to make us believe in something that may not exist? Raymond M. Moody Jr. M.D. examines this phenomenon using relatable writing styles to represent his scientific findings on the human experience concerning survival of bodily death.  

Using repetition to produce a life-like interview, the audience’s understanding of human senses becomes their reality.  Unlike third person written lab reports on a students chemistry experiment or creative mystical novels told in multiple perspectives; Moody talks to his reader directly using a first person point of view.  This enthralls his intellectual audience by helping grasp the enlightened information that Moody proclaims during his miniature interviews about human experiences that random people encounter daily.  

I say “intellectual audience” due to compelling questions that he asks his readers in addition to his captivating, yet scientific conclusions.  Common questions that arose were “What were these people’s religious affiliations?”, “If different religious affiliations, how are their experiences shaped by that?”, and “How do you know that these stories are fictitious or factious?” But, how do you relate science to faith?  Moody utilizes his knowledge of supernatural, natural, and psychological facts to answer these religious based questions.  Moody describes supernatural explanations as either God-directed or Satan-directed to see what the actions of the person involved would be after their experiences.  When illustrating a natural (scientific) explanation, he claimed that the experiences occurring were caused by drugs (either therapeutic or prescribed) administered to the person at the time of the crisis.  When detailing psychological explanations, he states that these will vary widely according to the school of thought to which the explainer belongs (conscious lying or unconscious embellishment).  These three “explanations” help to answer the difficult questions. 

Although it seems that Moody was scientifically objective and logical in his research, he was unaware of the scientific techniques that we utilize today.  Interviewing a large amount of people, Moody was, slowly, but effectively able to gain the knowledge about different types of near-death experiences of the human race. Though not the most up-to-date novel, Moody wrote an intelligent piece of work discussing experiences relating to survival of bodily death.  With riveting stylistic choices, and persuasive perspective view points -- Moody engaged his audience by telling them the story of people whose lives have been impacted by near-death occurrences.  The question he ends on is the question we all ask; Is there Life After Life? 

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shares the outlandish cases of the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his life long friend John Watson.  Throughout The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, the reader is taken on a journey with Sherlock and John while a variety of people from all over England ask these two men to solve peculiar cases dealing with all sorts of mysteries.  Within each tale of strange cases, you see the close friendship between Watson and Holmes grow stronger and stronger as they strive towards one goal: to solve the case that's in front of them.

When rating this book on a 1-5 scale (5 being the highest), I would give it a four because there were moments where the book seemed to be moving very slowly compared to the rest of its captivating and action-packed story.  Though the book didn't have a defined plot or story line -- I enjoyed how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle separated each case.  With each little story about the case that Holmes and Watson solved together, there came new characters, new locations, new situations, and new cliff hangers which excited me throughout the novel.

Asses Vs. Elephants

        Should women have the personal right to choose her own health decisions?  Should we tax the 1%?  Should we eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas instead of creating jobs in America? The differences between Republicans and Democrats are as clear as the difference between Red vs. Blue.    

Romney believes that women do not have the right to decide their personal medical assistance and the government should decide those actions for her.  He wants to cut government funding from Planned Parenthood and birth control in order to make abortion illegal.  Romney believes that we should relieve the 1% of higher taxes and shower them in tax breaks. This economic strategy is a lot like Reaganomics, don’t you think?  Romney also believes that creating thousands of jobs overseas will help America and increase trade.  This might increase trade, but what about the creation of jobs here?  Last time I checked I lived in America and not in Switzerland. 

Obama insists that women choose their own path when deciding her plan of action for health care.  Obama does not want to cut Planned Parenthood or birth control and even fought back against the Republican attempts to defund it.  Obama wants to make sure that millionaires aren’t paying less in taxes than middle class families are paying right now.  Under President Obama we’ve seen thirty one straight months of job growth in the U.S.A. which is the most growth of job creation since 1997.  Unlike Governor Romney’s strategy, President Obama wants to create jobs in the U.S.A. and will eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas, hopefully sparking obligations to the American people to create more jobs here.  

Asses vs. Elephants; plain and simple.  Where Romney wants to take away women’s rights, Obama wants to keep them because he knows that women have equal rights to men.  Where Romney wants to cut funding for many medical options a woman could pursue, Obama wants to keep them and let women choose their own path instead of the government choosing for them.  Where Romney wants to cut taxes for the 1% and tax more on the people who struggle to survive, Obama wants to decrease taxes for the middle class and those struggling on the streets and increase the taxes who have enough money to afford a car, a house, support their family, and stay alive.  Where Romney is focused on creating jobs overseas, Obama’s focus is here in the U.S.A.  

If you compare these two candidates, you see that President Obama’s plan is more logical and better for everyone and not a specific group of people.  His plan looks at the big picture and not just a megapixel of the image.  Romney narrows it down to helping the 1% keep more money instead of letting it go to the government for it to be shared throughout our nation.  One dollar in government expenditures creates seven dollars worth of businesses and activity; which is what Obama wants to have happen by raising taxes on those who have money and let those who need to earn more money save as much as possible.  Romney doesn’t realize that.  Obama is aware that a woman is capable to make her own decision and to not get into the way.  That is her own personal decision and it has nothing to do with what the community thinks.  Obama also notices that there are few jobs in America and understands that the President of the U.S.A. needs to keep the job creation growing and not growing in other countries, unlike Governor Romney.  There are approximately six million people who are without jobs and homeless.  Making jobs in other countries will do nothing for those six million, just help them not survive and make them suffer more.  Obama has created 5.2 million private sector jobs, including nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs over his presidency.  Governor Romney is focused on companies’ foreign profits and job creation; but his mind set is on the other side of the world.  That isn’t going to help the U.S.A. recover from this economic crisis. 

Women’s rights, more jobs, equal pay of taxes -- vote for Obama.  No choice/No women’s rights, more jobs overseas, 1% pay less in taxes and everyone else pay more in taxes -- vote for Romney.  But when you have no more money and go homeless, do me a favor: don’t call me when you start complaining about how you should have voted for Barak Obama for the president of 2012-2016.  Besides, who likes being an ass?  

Earth Abides

Have you ever come home from a vacation and saw things that once were not there?  It takes you a moment to realize that something does not feel right; but when you finally discover what it is, there is a sense of relief that blankets you: Because now you aren't worried what it is that was different. But, what if you don't know what happened? You don't know why things are different. Can you imagine coming home after a camping trip and no one else is there? All of humanity, except for some special few, have disappeared for unknown reasons.  There are only a couple people left on the earth; and that includes you. You don't know what catastrophe occurred to wipe out your peers, your acquaintances, your friends, your pets, or your family.  All you know is that they're gone.  All of the people who used to live next to you have died off.  Can you imagine that?

Isherwood Williams, or Ish, doesn't have to.  The feeling of no one being there has actually come true for him.  After a strenuous camping trip out in the middle of nowhere, Ish comes home to discover that he and a few others are the only people left to fend for themselves.  Losing hope for the future, he comes upon a women named Em who brings hope back into his life.  Once Em came into the picture was my favorite part.  The way that she was able to help Ish become a little more comfortable with where the situation stands and how she made him feel.  Not just by bringing back bits of hope for humanity, but by giving him a friend.

George R. Stewart wrote the book to change how you perceive what you are lucky enough to have.  We, as a pretty wealthy society compared to some, take for granted what we have.  We don't think about how life would be different if we didn't have all that we own today.  Ish used to have it -- and then, he doesn't.  It made me question what I would do in that situation.  Where would I go if suddenly to human race had just disappeared?  Would I go to other countries and seek life there?  How do you imagine life without the things that make up your life?

As one who likes to think outside of the box and try and make the "impossibles" into the "possibles," this story intrigued me and inspired me to enjoy what I have while I have it.  Ish's journey and experiences throughout the novel made the unreal, real.  It's difficult to picture coming home to no family or friends or even next door neighbors.  But it sure is fun, and quite fascinating, to take Ish's situation and put yourself in his shoes.  Exploring this nation in order to find another person who survived a catastrophe so large to take out the human race, and then luckily meeting Em to change your thoughts about the future into positives instead of negatives takes more courage and strength to embrace than most people would think of embracing.

Earth Abides is a story that challenges the mind to think beyond the breaking point.  It challenges your fears to dare and to be fearless.  It encourages you to be the optimist instead of the pessimist.  "In spite of recurrent discouragement, Ish still kept trying ..."