The Fantasist Gone Wrong

I'm pretty sure everyone has/is going through that familiar overwhelming whirlpool of work..due dates...tests...grading...ACT/SAT...and aaahhh! At times like these, I just can't take the stress and go to sleep with the thought "let the chips fall where they may" in hopes to escape and go to dreamland to perceive everything as bright, serene, and...fake. Sometimes its okay to dream, other times (or most the time) you have to get up and face reality.

Dream is a formulation of ambitions,ideals, and in some cases perception whereas reality is real. We as human beings have an innate desire to strive for our dreams. Here's the tricky part, life's purpose is to turn our wishful perceptions and turn them into reality. But what happens when instead of "living your dream" you are as a matter of fact "living in your dream"? 

Psychologists, Patrick Mcnamara addresses this issue and defines it as "false awakening" and when people go through this they are accompanied with an eerie feeling. "The eerie-ness is not surprising given that the experience undermines the belief we all usually have that we have direct contact with reality. It is certainly a shock to realize that you can be going about your day when in fact you are only dreaming." 

(For more: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dream-catcher/201106/dream-and-reality)

Daisy (from The Great Gatsby) is a perfect example of this. She fabricates her surroundings as if she were in a dream where all troubles are forgotten along with the truth. She happily cheats on her husband. Tom (given that Tom does as well, but that's not the point). She is happy with Gatsby and does not think ahead whereas Gatsby is sure that Daisy and him will get married. On the day of confrontation, Daisy is finally hit with reality and does not know what to do, as if she never actually "intended doing anything at all" (132 Fitzgerald). She dreamed of a life full of personal desires never thinking ahead to turn them into reality. but instead making her perception into reality.

                                     

Are you catching your dreams or are you fabricating reality?

White Lies

What are some occasional white lies most of us incorporate in to our daily lives? "I'll be there in five minutes!" (Yea, more like in a half an hour, I just don't want you to worry) or what about "I'll do my homework as soon as I get home" (or at 9 pm) oh and lets not forget the famous "I worked out for hours." These lies can end up being harmless, but in some cases they can be disastrous. Experts claim that in the end, there is little difference between  a "little lie (complementing the socks your Grandma gave) to a big lie ( covering up an extramarital affair)" (Ulrich Boser health.usnews.com). 

In the The History Teacher by Billy Collins, the teacher should have created a real sense of emotion when explaining the past wars and disasters so that his students can benefit and not let history repeat itself. But instead, he uses a series of understatements by describing the Ice Age as nothing more than a "Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters" (Collins 1). He does this to try and "protect his students innocence." He is fighting in a losing battle as he is trying to protect the innocence of those who are not even innocent. A playground symbolizes youth and innocence so its ironic how that innocence became the basis of "torment." The setting is used to illustrate how innocence cannot be persevered. What the teacher seems to believe is a white lie, is in fact detrimental as he is obstructing his students abilities to learn from the mistakes of previous generations. 

Innocence is collapsing and it is going viral. It is a disease and everyone is going to be effected by it. 

                                         

I am not innocent, so hurt me with the truth so that I can proliferate from it.

 

                                    

 

Evolution Of Punctuation

Throughout centuries punctuation though present, has found a way to morph into several forms. From Shakespeare's famous "How fare thee?" to the average "How are you?" and finally to the evolution of "Waddup?" Even though these sentences ultimately mean the same thing, in today's time, you will rarely ever find someone incorporating Elizabethan language in his/her day-to-day life. Henry Hitchings, the author of the article Punctuation, Social Media, and Evolving Rules of Communication  claims that change in culture reflects change in language. He further elaborates by mentioning previous used punctuation marks such as the "Pilcrow and the hedera" which along with culture also evolved and new marks were/are introduced. As Hitching says, "Punctuation comes and goes" but it never disappears.
                              

Too many grammar restrictions can be seen as "feigning liberation" as it has the ability to make an individual intimidated by the various rules of grammar and overall feel as if grammar is "tightening the leash"  on creativity. If grammar were to cut down its rules, it would leave "a trail of possibilities" (On Punctuation by Elizabeth Austen) for an individual to express his/her thoughts. Furthermore, Amanda Cosco conveys how twitter, a popular (meaning comfortable) means of communication can make one a better writer. In her article How Twitter Can Make You a Better Writer, Cosco is able to point out the perks of Twitter's tight word count as it forces people to be "concise and less flowery" as you wouldn't want to waste "your precious characters on "very" or "really" when you could actually be saying something substantial." This in turn results in the denunciation of the overall issue of wordiness.  It's true that there are many unintelligent tweets, but it's also a known fact that many famous poets such as Andrea Gibson benefit from tweeting as it also can be used as a "testing ground for more developed writings."  In the end, Twitter is accessible to anyone who wants it as it creates a leveled ground. Tweets can range from being unnecessary to beautiful, it depends on how you want to express yourself as "a tweet is essentially a thought gone public" (Cosco 8).  

                                             

Free Fallin

One thing we desire - whether from stress or judgement- is to be free. One may feel trapped by higher authority and their ideals as he/she may not like being ordered around and feel controlled.

"Elbows bent, hands on shoulder, [Pecola] flailed her arms like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly. Beating the air, a winged but grounded bird, intent on the blue void it could not reach-could not even see- but which filled the valleys of the mind" (Morrison 204).

Morrison uses imagery in this passage to illustrate the strong desire that consumes Pecola to achieve her dream-to be a part of the white standards.Usually, when you see a kid acting like a bird, you would think that they're just fooling around and laugh it off. The imagery is recognized to challenge this thought- process as Pecola is not just playing, she's desperate. Pecola desperately flaps her arms so that somehow she could miraculously fly and reach the blue sky. The blue sky symbolizes white beauty. In a culture where white beauty is dominant and black beauty is ignored, it is impossible for Pecola to live her dream.

A simile is used to compare Pecola to a bird. A bird symbolizes freedom, which is exactly what Pecola strives for. She wants to be free from the "ugliness" and obtain blue-eyes. Unfortunately, even when she thinks she finally has blue eyes, society does not see any difference and because of this she is driven to madness as the pressure becomes to overwhelming.

Furthermore by contrasting the situations of Pecola and Cholly, Morrison is able to elaborate on the dangers of too much freedom. Cholly ended up becoming free to the point where he could do anything he wanted and get away with it. In the end, his freedom drove him to insanity.

Cholly's cause of madness was too much freedom whereas Pecola's was the opposite.

                                                     
                  

In this animated image, the birds (symbol for freedom) are frantically flying, having no sense of direction. This shows how to a certain extent, some sort of guidance  is necessary as too much freedom is harmful.

They Are Flowers For Those Who Want To See Them

So I searched up the literal definition of a weed and Google claims it is a "wild plant growing where it is not wanted " I connected this definition to a particular weed- a dandelion. If they are so unwanted then why do kids get excited when they find one and blow on it? Its pretty ironic because when I was little I used to say- "Look! I wish!" instead of "Look! A dandelion!" I used to think of it as good luck or hope, but in a general perspective it is just a weed- ugly and unwelcomed.

This week in class, we discussed the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Pecola questions why people look at dandelions as weeds. She acknowledges how people make "dandelion soup..dandelion wine, yet nobody loves the head of a dandelion" (Morrison 47). Though society claims dandelions are ugly, Pecola thought otherwise. In a way, the dandelions represent Pecola and the African American community. The people label them as "ugly" yet need them for their own work. Pecola is a young black girl who is raised with no sense of self- value, just like the dandelions. She is a dandelion who hopes to have blue eyes and blond hair, so that she can be pretty.

Dandelions are not actually ugly, but perspective can morph this idea of true beauty into something it is not. Beauty is art, it has many different perspectives just like a dandelion- some look at it as just an ugly weed, while others (like Pecola) are attracted to it.

In the Hunger Games, Katniss looks at a dandelion as symbol for hope. After Peeta gave her bread to feed her family, she saw three dandelions. She realizes that she could feed her family with food from forest gatherings. Katniss looked at the dandelions as a survival tool whereas society just deemed it useless.