There’s this one thing that annoys me: a full inbox, even if it’s not mine. But the focus of this topic is that my Comcast inbox started filling up with e-mails that I’ve subscribed to websites for but haven’t bothered reading. After about a month or two of getting an e-mail from Colgate (the school) every week or two, I decided to actually check what majors and minors that it offers, and it doesn’t look like it’s the school for me. There are a few majors that interest me, like physics, but I think I’d prefer to go into some sort of engineering or designing. I’ve been thinking about architecture, but with the whole housing economy and all… yeah… It might not be the smartest professional choice. Anyways… I also took the time to check this newsletter that I subscribe to from WritersRelief.com. I skimmed through some articles that sounded somewhat interesting, and I think a few are worth mentioning:
So, I think out of these three links, I read the Website article first. Now that I think back on it, I don’t think it was the greatest thing ever, so I’m not quite sure why I bothered sharing it, but it got me thinking. I realized that some people like Dharun and Daesun tried blogging, (because they realized how cool blogging made me, no doubt) but they did more so in Facebook notes than in blogging sites like WordPress and Xanga. As you might expect, they got more comments on their blog entries because it is, of course, Facebook, which is kind of central to people of our age’s social lives these days, and it’s kind of depressing–both our dependency on Facebook and how there are more comments made on Facebook than on the original blogging sites. My point isn’t to address the Facebook fanaticism, but to make note of the number of comments. It’s not all that sad, really, but it bothers me because I’m not much of a person that likes exclusivity unless there are just some people and/or things that I absolutely cannot stand. The thing with using Facebook notes as a stage for blogging just irks me because unless I tag people, no one will read it. And I suppose that I would get more readers through Facebook, but, like I said, I don’t like exclusivity and choosing between tagging this person or that person (because there’s a limit to how many people you can tag in a note). The other capability that I like WordPress for, other than not having to choose, is that it lets me monitor how many views I get on my blog per day. But, oh well. I just wish there were some way to actually get people to comment on my entries so that it’s permanently (or at least relatively so) recorded on the site, as opposed to just starting conversations in AIM that are usually only one-way and, even more commonly, neither-way. When people do reply with thoughts on my blog entries though, they typically do so through AIM, and more often than not, the comments are just complaints of how long the entry is and how much of it is just blabber about things that only I care about (mostly paintball). I would like if people could actually reply with thought, as people like Ishieymoro and Jelly do, but I guess you can’t always get what you want.
Anyways, the second link that I posted above is just a resource that anyone interested in publishing creative works can refer to, although those links are probably more for people more serious and developed writers than me. The third link is just a medium sized list of general rules of writing, like avoiding passive voice, which I still don’t completely understand, avoiding redundancy, avoiding the use of second person, etc. It’s actually sort of funny, too, so it’s a good reference, especially when those typical grammar and writing checklists that you get in class bore you to sleep before you get halfway through it.
Alright. So I’ve written about 650 words so far on just me checking my e-mail. Amazing, isn’t it? But, yeah. I think that’s enough. I’ll spare you any more reading by stopping reading my e-mail until I’m done posting. Just as a precaution…
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Well, I wrote another essay in Art of the Essay recently about “Europa, Europa,” a foreign film about a Jewish boy who survives the Holocaust by posing as a German and even joining the ranks of the Hitler Youth. It’s a pretty good movie, but some things bothered me like how bad of an actor one guy was, who was supposed to take the main role but grew too old. Anyway, I think my essay was pretty good. In case you’re interested in reading it, (and because I sort of feel like showing off,) I’m posting it here.
“Just Nature”
“The right of nature… is the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life” (Leviathan. 1, XIV). The notion of inalienable rights has existed for millennia, and since the 17th Century, these rights have been better known as Natural rights, the most essential of which, as proposed by Thomas Hobbes, is that to self-preservation. In “Europa, Europa,” which is set during the Holocaust, everything is a matter of life and death, relieving trust and agonizing isolation. Everything that Solly does is justifiable by nature, from the rights of life to the follies of love that it bestows upon us.
Once Solly is taught Stalinist beliefs, his repression of his Jewish beliefs may be considered deplorable, a shameful act, but he claims that “Religion is the opium of the masses” in order to protect himself. Had he shown any pride of his Jewish roots, Solly would have been labeled as a counter-revolutionist, someone comparable to a criminal in Soviet Russia, and publicly humiliated just as Zenek and others were when they claimed that God exists. Although self-preservation may not constitute avoiding humiliation simply because it causes discomfort, for the chances of survival, it is better to be part of a majority and face one enemy, the Nazis, than to rebel and face both the Nazis and religiously intolerant Bolsheviks. Religion is adopted once born and can only be followed when alive and breathing, so life takes precedence over religion both because religion may not exist without life and because Natural Rights are inherited from birth.
Solly never directly or intentionally helps the German soldiers, so he does not actually do much of anything considered to be immoral, other than lying to survive by concealing his identity. It may be argued, however, that a bystander is no longer innocent when he or she is given the chance to aid the victimized. Of course, there are times when Solly is armed with weapons to kill, but he never really has the ability to turn the tides against the Germans and live through it. Solly has his greatest opportunity to fight against the Germans when he crosses the bridge to the seven Bolshevik soldiers that end up being ambushed by a large group of German soldiers, but fighting was barely even an option. Even if Solly and the seven Bolsheviks had been able to lower their guns from above their heads and fire upon the Germans, they would still have been largely outnumbered and would have faced sure death. Unless Solly did not value his life, he remained an innocent bystander, unable in any way to help those whom he wanted to help. It is better to have only those who would have suffered fall to the Nazis’ wrath than to have one more perish because he recklessly decided to fight against all odds. The most prominent Natural Right is to self-preservation and not to the preservation of others, which would have resulted in Solly’s own death.
Falling in love with Leni, an ardent supporter of Hitler, may not have been the smartest thing that Solly could have done, for it could have brought about his undoing, but it is justified simply because humans fall in love. It is a fact that may be, at times, inconvenient and even tragic, but it is true nonetheless. It is not a Natural Right to love—in Solly’s case, falling in love with Leni may even have had the opposite effect of self-preservation—but love is, of course, natural. Solly says in the film, “I’m not made of stone. I have feelings, too!” There is no avoiding the pains of passion for Solly even when he is surrounded by an entire populace who wants nothing less than death to his race. There is nothing morally unacceptable about Solly’s feelings toward Leni besides the fact that she wants to exterminate an entire race. It is a dimwitted thing to do, but love is natural; no one and nothing is to blame for Solly loving someone who unknowingly wants him dead.
Something else that Solly does out of sheer nature is trusting Leni’s German mother with the secret that he is Jewish. It is another action that may not have been particularly clever, since Leni’s mother could easily have been someone who would have turned Solly in to the authorities, but dependence is another human trait. Solly’s state of being unknown leads to him being alone, and to be alone is to feel hopeless. When Solly tells Leni’s mother that he is Jewish, he reasons, “I had to tell someone. I couldn’t stand it anymore.” The burden of his secret was too great for Solly to bear by himself, so he felt the need to reach out to someone else, and in the case that that person could keep his secret, he would be reinvigorated with a new sense of hope, knowing that he has someone who is on his side. Humans are social mammals by nature, dependent upon the acceptance by others, and since Solly is human, he is no exception. Another of Solly’s follies is justified by humans’ nature.
Survival is an animal instinct that is justified by the Natural Right to self-preservation, and the needs for love and dependency are just natural, just human, and, thus, simply just. The central Natural Right according to Thomas Hobbes may, at times, conflict with nature itself, since love and dependency on others very well could have brought about Solly’s downfall, but herein lies the need for human input, where people must put to use their ability to reason and judge as civilized men and women, as creatures that have developed beyond simple nature to pursue intellect and logic.
Besides that and me seriously worrying about my grades in Physics and Precalc, I only have poetry to talk about now. My actual thoughts are quite boring, really, if I’ve had any insight into anything in the past week, or even the past month. I went to the Plainsboro Library again on Wednesday for Tutoring Society. I’m a tutor there, and there was nothing for me to do until about 7 or 7:30, so instead of doing my homework, which wasn’t really due the next day anyway, I went to the poetry aisle and looked for interesting reads. I have to admit that that was the first time in a long time that I had voluntarily picked up a book to read, but… yeah… Anyway, I looked through a collection of Robert Frost poems, since I didn’t recognize many other classic poets that were on the shelf and didn’t feel like going through the effort of trying to read any of the other poems. The Robert Frost collection sort of stood out to me because it had a plain cover, looked somewhat tattered, and had four post-its sticking out of it, which I assumed to be bookmarks for at least one person’s favorite poems. I read the bookmarked poems first, but they didn’t really appeal to me… But, yeah. The poems I still remember now are “Dust of Snow,” “Fire and Ice,” “The Wood-Pile,” and “Happiness Makes Up in Height for What it Lacks in Length.” The last of those didn’t seem all that great to me–probably because I didn’t really understand the final meaning of it–but the title is pretty damn cool, don’t you think? That’s as far as my interest in it goes, though. “The Wood-Pile” wasn’t the greatest poem, either, but I read through it in hopes that it would at least partially redeem itself, and it did. It’s kind of hard to pick out an excerpt that’s short and has all the context that’s required to understand the poem in it, but I tried.
Excerpt from Robert Frost’s “The Wood-Pile”
And it was older sure than this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s or the year’s before.
The wood was grey and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
The part that really hit me was the last three lines, where Frost writes of the wood-pile serving as a fireplace and of the “slow smokeless burning of decay.” That’s pretty strong. I’m thinking that it probably would have made a better poem had it been introduced at the beginning or even the middle of the poem, so then the “burning of decay” could be elaborated on, but it works fine as it is, I suppose. The other two poems, “Dust of Snow” and “Fire and Ice,” I just like because: 1. I can actually understand them, and 2. I like how they’re written and what they’re written on, because they make me remember and think back on certain things.
Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
And now, to put this marathon entry to an end, my own poem. I’m working on this other song, or rather a poem with a mental tune that goes with it, but I normally don’t post unfinished stuff on my blog. I’m just teasing, I guess. lol. The problem I have, though, is not with the lyrics, but with the idea of me trying to sing it. The writing of it is fun, but as you may or may not know, I’m a terrible singer… even if I’m singing a song that’s basically just screamo. But, anyways. Here’s my poem. I’ve asked Ishieymoro and Jelly (whom I think I’ve started to refer to as my AA batteries now because of their first initials and because they power my work when I need refining) to read it already, but I’m pretty sure that Jelly hasn’t read it yet. I had trouble with coming up with a title at first, but I like the title that I’ve just thought of. And so, without further ado, I present to you my poem so you can stop killing your eyes by reading so much.
Free Me From Escape
I used to know what it meant
to self-preserve from love,
to stop a fool from being sent
to a world where no heart moves.
I never used to speak out
in fear of being broken;
and I always used to doubt
if love were ever spoken.
That prison in which I stayed,
I stayed in with no route;
no planned escape had I made
to be free and to break out.
But somehow my walls broke down,
leaving me defenseless,
allowing me to begin
a new life in new darkness.
This new sadness is too deep
for slight smiles to conceal–
too down deep, even, to reap–
smiles, in fact, feed its appeal.
You’re the one for me to blame,
though hate can’t love always;
I’ll both hate and love in shame,
but it must not tilt one way.
Err… Yeah… Remember when said I’d stop writing? Yeah. Sorry. But, I think I have to explain this poem… or not. Yeah. Never mind. I really don’t remember what inspired me to write this. WAIT. NO. I remember now. (lol. Sorry. Again.) Yeah. I was watching “Love Actually” again for the umteenth time at about 3 AM on New Years Day, and I have always been moved by the scene where Juliet realizes that Mark loves her and he says, in defense of him not revealing that fact to her, “It’s… a self-preservation thing… You see?” Not only did that hold great meaning for me, or at least it did last year, (that’s why I started my poem with “I used to know what it meant/to self-preserve from love”) but it’s also the last line before he walks out of his apartment and you can see that he’s torn between going back in to say something more to Juliet and just walking away. He walks away. And that’s what makes it all the more depressing. But, yeah. I had this other idea, too, a while later of writing another poem that described how the state of feeling so little sadness brings another type of sadness, one of longing for the original and even familiar sadness. From this spawned “This new sadness is too deep/for slight smiles to conceal–/too down deep, even, to reap–smiles, in fact, feeds its appeal.” The rest of the poem just came to me as I wrote it.
So now I’m done. Aren’t you excited? Now you can go on doing whatever else you want and not be bugged by me to read this entry! =D
Oh, by the way… “Love Actually” is an awesome movie, especially with the British accents and all. “Definitely, Maybe” is equally awesome, although it’s sans the cool accents, with a more coherent plot line. (I have ALWAYS wanted to use “sans” since the Lit Mag came out last year…) Plus, “Definitely, Maybe” is from the same makers as from “Love Actually.”
Okay. NOW you’re free. I swear. At least until the next time I update. /cackle/
