Comments

I commented on Joes and I think it was Sarahs posts. Joe really seemed to understand what Mr. Watts was talking about, and all power to him. I am still completely lost. Sarah was more up my alley with what she understood. I read a couple other peoples blogs, and I think that Aaron and I are closest in understanding that is to say we get what the guy was talking about, but we dont understand it. The difference is between knowing what you are studying and actually studying it. Ah well, Tylenol anyone?

Alan Watts

This is perhaps the strangest thing I have ever listened to. "Imagine that you can change the temporal flow of your dreams, so you can live seventy years in one night." What the heck is wrong with this guy? I understood the point he was trying to get across maybe one-third of the time. A lot of the time I wasn't sure if he was speaking about Hinduism, Muslim, or Christianity. He kept on giving examples of what he was saying from the Bible as well as those weird books. I know Mr. Farrell said that the Hindu religion incorporates the idea that all other religions are right, but actually quoting them? I think I must have missed something that would clue me in. If anyone else understood the lecture any better, I would certainly appreciate a clarification. I mean come on, the guy was saying that the entire world was our mind and god's mind puting on a great dramactic performance, but I think he said that the two minds were one. Does he mean we are god? Weird, weird man.

Common Theme

There were really several common themes in these stories, but the main one was selfishness. All four involved people who seemed to care only about looking out for number one. In each story, a main character caused dissappointment by being selfish. Normally, being a little selfish is not a bad thing. A little selfishness keeps things going and leaves room for proper competition. These guys took it to extremes. Good grief, look at what happened: A guy marries a girl for a car; A girl insults her family in pursuit of chess greatness; a father lies to his daughter for years to preserve her good opinion of him; and a boy tosses the blame on everyone but himself before running away. These do not seem like your average acts of humanity. Well, okay, maybe in some African countries they may still be socially acceptable, but this is America!
What really bugged me was that no one, in any of the stories, really threw any effort into being a better person. Oh, sure, they tried to be better at their hobbies, or pastimes, but never into themselves. It was almost as if each character viewed the world as "It is me against the universe, I don't need help and I am not going to lose." I hate to inform the characters, but THAT IS NOT HOW THINGS WORK IN REAL LIFE. Maybe in loonyville people can succeed with that attitude, but this isn't loonyville and thes people need to GET WITH THE PROGRAM. End of rant and, for that matter, end of short stories-Yay!

Teenage Wasteland

Well, what a lazy, immature child! This does seem to be the kind of behavior that a person with ADHD or ADD would exhibit, but I feel that in this case it is probably more of a rebellious phase. Unfortunately, it seems that, these days, more and more children are behaving like Donny. What really bugged me about this story was Cal. He was in a position of influence with Donny and he abused it. I mean, he was charging Donny's parents as a tutor, but, if anything, he was making Donny's grades even worse. Furthermore, he was instilling a "not my fault" mentality into the kid. Good grief, there are already enough politicians with that mentality, we don't need anyone else to develop it. This story seemed to me the saddest. It starred a kid who seemed unmotivated, but basically good, who, through the course of his decisions, lost his chance at greater things. I don't believe that Donny was stupid, nor innatentive, nor even ADD. It seemed to be a plain and simple case of lack of motivation. I do think that a lot of that probably came from his parents, there was a gush over anything he did, but, at first, no real push for Donny to strive to do better. The only time the parents stepped in was when Donny was already on his downhill slide and beginning to accelerate. That is definately not proper parenting.

The Book Of The Dead

This is one of the strangest stories that I have ever read. Why would anyone carve a statue of their father in prison? Granted, there are some bizarre people out there, but that is over the top. Then, just when I got my head around that idea, I have the notion struck from my mind. The father explains that he was actually a guard in the prison. Good grief, that certainly puts the twisted in plot twist. But anyway, I am still not entirely sure just how old the girl is. She could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty. For the sake of my mind I hope she is older rather than younger, but the story gives no clue.
What the heck is going on anyway? First, the father is missing and no one knows where he is. Next, he comes back and takes Ka to either a lake or the ocean, I'm still not sure which, and tells her that her statue is on the bottom. Then, he tells her the truth of how he got his scar. What gets me the most is that she just seems to accept this, she doesn't freak out or deny it or anything, she just acts like nothing is changed. To top it all off, they still go to the house of the woman who bought the statue in the first place. Now personally, I would feel that to be more than a little bit rude. I cannot imagine what the theme of this short story is meant to be. I mean, trust is blown out the window, respect is torn to shreds, decency is slaughtered, the moral of this story must be that traditional values are worthless. Good grief.

The Rules of the Game

Amy Tan truly typed a masterpiece with this short story. There is an elegent plot, a fine level of detail throughout, and a marvelous ending. This is the type of thing I enjoy reading. Meimei is such a wonderfully vivid and believable character. She starts out a respectful young girl, learning the tactics and moves of life. When her brother receives a chess set for christmas, her tactical studies alter their basis to this new challange. Swiftly discovering she has a knack for this pastime, she does everything in her power to further develop her skills. Along the way however, whe loses the social skills that she had begun to attain. She forgets her earliest tactics as she reaches for more advanced ones. Finally, she alienates her family in her all-consuming desire for chess and importance.
It is so easy for me to connect with Meimei. Chess is such an easy game to get caught up in, and it is quite capable of centering a life. It is sad that she forgets those who put her on the path to greatness, but this is a trend that is seen all too often in real life. Allowances were made for her to develop her skills to the max, and her arrogance developed apace. The moral of the story is to remember your beginnings, and respect those who give you a start.

The Life you save may be your own

Flannery O'Conner's short story is one of the most pointlessly dispirited tales I have ever read. There is no proper introduction to the characters, there is no opinion implanted in the reader's mind, and there is no sense of reality. In short, this short story is a travesty inscribed on paper that serves no purpose but to relieve the author's angst. Now then, with my own angst relieved, I still believe that the story has very few decent attributes. This is a "short" story, so I can understand the brevity of the descriptions, yet even so the literature is almost unbelievably abrupt. It almost seems like this was a story dashed of at the last minute to meet a publisher's deadline that had been forgotten.
I suspect that there is a moral to this yarn, but for the life of me I can not determine what it could be. The only life lesson that might possibly be learned is that men with one arm should not be trusted with daughters. I would say that the moral is that the younger generation is ungrateful, except that there are too few characters for me to generalize. Frankly, I have to struggle to percieve even the point that I said. The story is simply not long enough to permit any detailed evaluation of its contents. I only hope the other stories present a more detailed facade for interpretation.