The Truth in Shadows

I went to the art museum and was immediately struck by this piece and another like it. 

What interested me most about them was that it was extremely difficult to make sense of the shapes and lines I was seeing. There were so many intricacies that I was a tad overwhelmed. However, after a few minutes my eyes needed a break, so I looked at the wall, and that's where I began to spark something. In looking at the shadows of the sculptures, I was better able to understand what they were and methodize what I thought of them. It's because the shadows only showed what was most prominent in each sculpture and diluted the details. The shadows showed the core of the piece. This led me to wonder what it is that we see in the shadows of humans and what we can do to influence that. If the artist of this sculpture intended for the observer to focus simply on its shadow (who knows, maybe he did?), what would he have done differently to manipulate it? What would we as humans do to manipulate our shadows if we had a choice? I don't mean changing the way we look, but more the way our inner selves are represented. Is it when we reach 'Z' that we don't feel the need to tweak our shadows - when our shadows already truly represent ourselves?

From Objects to Equals

This piece is from the art museum, and it immediately reminded me of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.

I'm not sure if both sculptures are of women, but for my purposes they will be. This is a great representation of what de Beauvoir described society's view of women as: beings with mishaped minds and bereft of arms or hands to help themselves out of the pit of submission they were thrown into. That's a lot of words, but basically there is a common portrayal of women being less intelligent than men and helpless in the matter of promoting themselves in the world. There is a stigma that women cannot serve in a political office simply because they are women who go through P.M.S. and cannot be relied upon to make important decisions. There are a lot of stigmas like that, and I like to think that this sculpture is ironically mocking those misconceptions. I like to think that the way they are descending the steps in the sculpture means that they are taking themselves off the pedastals they were put on by men as objects to look at and immersing themselves in the world as equals.

Clones and Species-Being

I'm currently reading a book called Never Let Me Go, and it's about an alternative society in which there are clones of people that live their lives for the purpose of eventually donating their organs to their original versions, and this whole idea made me think of Karl Marx and the idea of species-being. This type of living - going through the motions of school and relationships all the while knowing their fates - it made me think about what Marx is trying to ward humans against, which is simply being a "slave to nature." These clones are not only losing themselves in the mindless production of objects - they are the objects. For the most part, these characters did nothing to rebel against this system they were thrust into, which I found surprising. They are clones, but they are also humans with human needs. I think the obstacle that was stopping them from fighting their fates was the fact that they didn't know they had a choice. Dare I bring Sartre into this discussion? Going back to my main point, these clones were being harvested for their organs, and these organs were going to people who would somehow use them better.  How would they use them better? I haven't finished the book yet, but my guess is that it is believed that the clones have no souls. Under that assumption, maybe the choices the clones would make would not be as ethically or socially acceptable, therefore their rights to make them should be taken away. So is it the presence of our souls that gives us the right to make decisions and live a full life? Is that part of our species-being?

The Evolution of Fruit Loops and Humanity

I was having Fruit Loops for the first time in a long time and I had one of those moments like in Swann’s Way Overture when he had a blast of a memory. It was really strong of my grandma’s lake house up North because she always had them in the mini cereal boxes I was obsessed with. It got me to thinking that I was truly convinced that each color of Fruit Loop was a different flavor; purple was grape and yellow was lemon and green was apple... I was so convinced that I really tasted the difference. I really did. So what kinds of differences do we still “taste” as adults? The distinction between races? Between men and women? One day, will society "taste" everyone the same? 

Is It Possible to Understand the Future?

A couple of days ago I watched a movie called A Single Man in my TCOM class. The basic premise of it is a man (the lovely Colin Firth), so heartbroken over the loss of a loved one (Matthew Goode), that he spends the entirety of the movie either preparing for his suicide or flashing back to better times. One of the big messages in the film was the idea that when everything becomes clear, when all the troubles and problems of your life either dissolve or become solved, that is when you will die. This is because there is nothing left to live for really. There is nothing left for you to figure out. My professor, after the movie was over, made a joke that he gets really worried whenever he feels like he's figured something  out because then he thinks, "Shoot! Am I about to die?" So this idea is an interesting one to ponder. I can relate it back to To The Lighthouse because this clarity could in a way be 'Z'.

However, when looking at a quote from Leaves of Grass, which says that "The past and the present wilt - I have filled them, emptied them,/And proceed to fill my next fold of the future" it offers an opposing view. I get the impression that to fill and to empty the past and present is to come to an understanding with them. Therefore, to understand them is to reach clarity, and according to A Single Man that's the end. But Whitman says that he proceeds to fill the future. Does that mean that when you reach clarity in your life it is impossible to have a future? Or is it just impossible to understand the future?

What If the Lighthouse Flickers?

I think this should have been my first blog post, simply because I chose my background with this video in mind, but I'm glad I waited because this artifact means so much more now after reading To the Lighthouse.

So I watched this video on HitRECord.com and it was so amazingly beautiful that I couldn't quite make sense of it at all. Now I can make connections. And these connections are pretty grand.

We've talked about the lighthouse and how it is possibly a guide and a thing to strive toward. We've thought of it as a 'Z'. Now let's think about it as something that flickers. In the narration that goes along with this video (which I have included below), flickering is something to be desired. When you think about the lighthouse flickering, it seems like that would be a bad thing. It means that something in the connection is going wrong. But maybe not. So what does this mean if the lighthouse flickers? It could possibly mean that the 'Z' in your life is weakening slightly. Maybe the flickering represents the uncertainty of what you want your 'Z' to be. It's turning on and off and becoming unreliable as a steady source of light toward your goal, therefore you might need to make some changes in your life to strengthen that light yourself, so to speak. When something is flickering, there is an automatic need to fix it.
So do you have to go to the lighthouse in order to tighten that lightbulb and stop the flickering?
How do you get there if your lit path is unclear?
Does this lead to a more challenging course?
Does this change the course completely?
Why bother going to the lighthouse at all if even that path is unclear?
Is this related to the idea that you have to struggle a little bit in order to really learn and understand things?
I know this is a lot of questions, but there's a lot of thinking with this entry.

So here's the text:

give me all the flickering lights!

tiny specs of fluttering rays

and city glitters shimmering

but only from far away.

i want them all it's an addiction

i want the christmas lights buried in snow

and the blips in science fiction

films from years ago. 

give me all the night sky's twinkling sprinkles

and the red pulsing eyes

on tvs that standby

fading, flirting in and out

like a game of cat and mouse.

bits of foil in the distance

blowing kisses from the sun to me and

showing no resistance to the photons

that consistently pass notes on

from one lover to the other

like cupids tiny brothers.

give me all the flickering lights.

light every candle and wave every phone

glinting and bleeping and

imprinting glowing circuses

that linger while I'm sleeping.

an orchestra of weeping light

swan singing like star crossed choirs

who play themselves to me 

all night.

And here's the link to the video:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/1236887

Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson Would Be Pals

When I read the line, "He could almost pity these mild cultivated people, who would be blown sky high, like bales of wool and barrels of apples, one of these days by the gunpowder that was in him." I couldn't help but relate it to one of Emily Dickinson's poems, in which she compares life to a loaded gun. However, the two connections to a gun are almost opposites. When Woolf describes it, it's the thing that has already blown, but Dickinson uses it as something that has not and may not ever blow. So why does this matter? I think it's interesting to note that like life, a gun can either make a huge impact and explode on the people around it, or it can remain unused and carry in it the potential for more. Which one is better? Each author would defend her own use of the word, but in my opinion (and in a completely non-violent manner), I would rather be a gun that fired. If my sole purpose is to shoot something, that's what I should do, I guess.

So here's Emily Dickinson's poem, "754":

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -
And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -
To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -
Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

Storage and "Inventory"

So I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art a couple of days ago and I went "behind the scenes" to learn about the conservation and storage of the art. This obviously led me to think of the "inventory" of the things that make us human and what would happen if we simply stored parts of our lives like the picture shown below. What would happen to these memories, characteristics, and emotions if we shoved them aside and never looked at them again? I wondered the whole time we were down there what the reasons were for putting these paintings and sculptures in storage and displaying the other hundreds of pieces of art. I know there is a rotation as far as this is concerned in a museum, so could that be the same for humans? Do we put some things aside for a temporary period, then bring them out again when we feel ready? Or are the things we put in storage there to stay? Another interesting concept I found in touring the museum was the idea that they oftentimes put things on display based on the time period they represent or the style of art they inhabit. Perhaps we do the same thing with the pieces that make us human. Inadvertently, we may sort our memories, characteristics, and emotions based on when or where we experienced them, and we only think about them or use them (put them on display, metaphorically) when they are most relevant to what is happening to us at the moment, much like when museums put an artist's work on display when it is his birthday or things of that nature.

Brakes On Our Desires

I recently ran across a "conversation" from a really cool website called SoulPancake (check it out, it'll change your life), and the prompt was this: 

"But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires. "                 - F. Scott Fitzgerald

What slams a brake on your desires?

It led me to think about The Metamorphosis and the fact that the main character went to work every day of his life and probably put a halt to so many of his aspirations because of that. These "brakes" on our "desires" are self-inflicted. This beetle dude had a choice in the matter. I should preface this whole thing by saying I believe that the man woke up as a beetle because something caused it. I can't make myself believe that it just happened for no reason. That being said, I think the reason he turned into a beetle was his own fault. I do not claim to know his (fictional) life, but I think the main cause of his affliction was that he did not use his life as a human as effectively as he should have. He wasted his humanity, so it was taken away from him.
Okay, so to tie all that into this "conversation," I would say that because he developed these "interior rules that act[ed] as brakes on [his] desires," meaning that he put a hold on his passion for a desk job somewhere, his exterior braked, so to speak, as a result. He changed into a beetle because he wasn't  pursuing his passions. Consequently, it can be suggested that what makes us human is the pursuit of our dreams. Without this, we would all be beetles. What would we live for? I think Karl Marx would agree with what I'm saying. He claimed that men who create objects turn their lives into objects as well, which is exactly what the man from The Metamorphosis did.

http://soulpancake.com/conversations/view/113545/but-i-am-slow-thinking-and-full-of-interior-rules-that-act-as-brakes-on-my.html

A Lesson From Christian Bale

On Saturdays, my friends and I like to watch movies. Sometimes these movies are incredibly bad, but we love them nonetheless. Last week, we watched Equilibrium, a film about a futuristic society in which the top enforcer (Christian Bale) misses a dose of an emotion-blocking drug and begins to realize that "things are not as they seem." After finishing it, I was struck with the idea of a world without emotion and I thought about the role emotions play in who we are. If we did not have emotions, the decisions we make would be completely different. I can't count how many times I have chosen something based on that "gut feeling." If I couldn't take that emotion into account when making choices,  I have no idea who I would be right now. This ties into Proust's musings about emotions because memories are a large source of feelings. It would be difficult to remember an event or a person without emotion to direct you. Feelings are important tools to being human. In the movie, you can see the difference between the Christian Bale with emotions and the one without. He is a completely different person, and having emotions changed his motive for living. They made him both more selfish and more selfless. Emotions are confusing and contradicting, but they are part of who we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVDiaYQXBVs

False Memories?

I ran across an article recently that discussed the possibility of creating false memories in the brain, and I immediately thought of Proust's Swann's Way Overture. In the article, scientists from M.I.T. said that they synthesized a memory in the brain of a lab mouse. I won't go into the details and jargon concerning this endeavor, but instead discuss the possibilities and consequences of such an idea.

For one, this made me think of how we create memories versus how we absorb memories. I think these are two separate ways of remembering something. When you create a memory, it is something similar to what the scientists did to the mouse. It has a purpose and was a voluntary action. This kind of memory is severely skewed, as we have talked about in class. To go even further, I think it lacks any kind of truth. Involuntary memory already skews events because of our perception, so just think of what man-made memories must be like! As far as absorbed memories are concerned, these are much more accurate. However, how do we know that these are absorbed or completely false? At least with voluntary memories there is a sense of control over them. With involuntary memories, who is to say where they came from? What kinds of consequences can arise from made-up memories? To what degree can they affect someone's life? It is nearly impossible to say because there is a very small chance a person would be able to recognize a false memory to begin with.

There was a quote from the article that really stuck out to me which said, "Why is our brain made in such a way that we form false memories?" I thought this was an interesting question. We, as humans, were put on this earth with brains fully capable of making things up and persuading us that they're true. Why? For the most part, don't we use every part of our body? Doesn't each part of the brain serve some vital function? So what could the function of false memory play in our lives? Perhaps it is a strategy that protects us from things that we do not have the capability of understanding or enduring. It's impossible to say.

Here's the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/science/false-memory-planted-in-a-mouse-brain-study-shows.html?ref=memory

The Still, Sad Music of Humanity

In William Wordsworth's poem, "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" there was a section that was too beautiful and jam-packed full of meaning to be ignored:

"For I have learned/To look on nature, not as in the hour/Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes/The still, sad music of humanity,/Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power/To chasten and subdue./And I have felt/A presence that disturbs me with the joy/Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime/Of something far more deeply interfused,/And the round ocean and the living air,/And the blue sky, and the mind of man:/A motion and a spirit, that impels/All thinking things, all objects of all thought,/And rolls through all things."(87-102) 

And there were several things that stood out to me:
1.  "The still, sad music of humanity," in itself does not mean much, but when I discovered a song that went perfectly with this poem, I thought it carried pretty heavy significance.
2.  "A presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,"could perhaps be interpreted as a suggestion of a higher being, which would not exactly coincide with Sartre's beliefs. However, if interpreted another way, it could suggest that the power of human thoughts, elevated as they may be, are deeply interfused amongst humans. This is an interesting thing to consider when you think about man's choices affecting all others. If his choices inadvertently link to everyone else, why can't his thoughts, in some way or another do the same thing? Is that why people create art and music? Is that their way of interfusing their thoughts?
3.  "...and the mind of man: a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of thought, and rolls through all things" is a quote that I think directly relates to Sartre's idea of one man's choices  affecting everyone around him. This is evident when you think of his quote, "in choosing for himself he chooses for all men."

So this little section carries a lot of weight, and a song that I feel carries just as much, if not more, is one by Patrick Watson, called "Lighthouse." In this song, it is just as much about the melodies and the undertones of light and dark as it is about the lyrics, which I suppose aren't much. This song reminded me of the poem because to me, it perfectly captures the emotions I felt when reading the section above. Furthermore, if those lines that I highlighted could be interpreted in yet another way, they could all be describing this song. It is, in fact, a "presence that disturbs me with joy of elevated thoughts" and it is indeed, "a motion and a spirit that impels (almost) all thinking things." When the song said, "Won't you shine a little light in your own backyard" it really solidified the link between these two works of art for me. This is because in the poem it kept talking about a force that rolls through all things and propels "elevated thoughts," which is a function that I think a lighthouse can serve as well. They both lead to someplace greater than the previous, and isn't that what we, as humans strive toward?

So here's the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkT43qmMZhY

And here are the lyrics:

"Lighthouse"- Patrick Watson  

Leave a lighthouse in the wild,

Cause I'm coming in

A little blind

Dreamer of a lighthouse in the woods

Shining a little light to bring us back home

Or to help us get back into the world

Went to find you in the backyard,

Hiding on the ceilings of our lives

Or hiding behind all, all busy lives

Dreaming of a lighthouse in the woods

To help us get back into the world

Cause I know

I've seen you before

Won't you shine

A little light

On us now

Won't you shine a little light

In your own backyard

Won't you shine a little light

In your own backyard

Dreaming of a lighthouse in the woods

Dreaming of a lighthouse in the woods

Man Is Nothing Else But That Which He Makes Of Himself

"Empathy" by Agnes Toth

When I was reading Sartre's "Existentialism Is a Humanism" and I saw the line, "Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself," I was blown away by it. It reminded me of the final project my group presented to the class in Honors 201, which involved puzzle pieces that were decorated with topics like love, art, and suffering. These things, these puzzle pieces, were what we believed made up the "good life," and were what it meant to be human. When I saw this painting, it became the missing factor that connected these two ideas together. In the picture, this person is making herself up by the puzzle pieces she is putting together. And boom goes the dynamite. 

So if we're putting ourselves together piece by piece, do we get to choose the pieces? If you take what Sartre said about being condemed to be free, I guess we do choose. So where do we find these pieces? Are they a part of us all along? This allows us to explore the idea that our puzzle pieces are not built just by experiences. Are these pieces just an "infinity of traces" that we must create an "inventory" for? I think we've gone full-circle.

Condemned To Be Free

For my next magic trick, I will show you how this picture is related to Jean-Paul Sartre. If you take the quote from "Existentialism Is a Humanism" that says, "man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does."and blend it in with the hidden meaning of this beautiful photograph, the concept is clear. Although this may not be the meaning that the photographer was going for in this picture, I have come to the conclusion that this person is trapped. And he is trapped - not by someone else's doing, but his own. His freedom to do as he pleases has condemned him to a place in between two worlds. He is responsible for himself and this is where his freedom got him. However much he may suffer, though, he is in a beautiful place. Liberty is beautiful. It can be scary and deprecating, yes, but it is ultimately good. And if you look at the picture, you can see that he knows this. He is standing, appreciating the splendor around him. This is not a photograph of man struggling to survive. This picture perfectly encapsulates the feeling of freedom and its condemning nature. 

The Walls of J. Alfred Prufrock

A wall has many functions - it can be something to hide behind, it can become a tool to separate you from something, it can be a roadblock that knocks you down, and maybe most importantly, it can confine you. In the "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," all of these different walls seem to present themselves. For one, Prufrock seems to use his appearance as an excuse - or a wall to hide behind - when he talks about how he believes women speak of him. This is evident when he says, "(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!')" (41). In this sense, it seems as though Prufrock is building a wall between himself and the rest of society by believing that he is of no use and has no ability to attract a lady. He measures his life out in coffee spoons - not the places he went or the people he has impacted - but coffee spoons (51). This implies that he didn't lead the kind of life that he saw others lead. Perhaps he hit a roadblock at some point in his life, and instead of going around it, he simply let it control him. Maybe he thought he missed out on something big. When he says, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,"it can be seen as the thought that he has hit a wall, so to speak (84). Maybe he did all he could and it wasn't enough. But who wasn't it enough for? Is Prufrock just dissatisfied in himself, or is he worried that someone else is judging him?

Perhaps the wall that presented the most problems to Prufrock was the wall of time. He seemed to think just until the end that he was swimming in time to do the things he wanted. He said, "There will be time to murder and create... Time for you and time for me,/And time yet for a hundred indecisions/ And for a hundred visions and revisions/Before the taking of toast and tea"(28).When it says, "You are confined only by the walls you build yourself" it means that you are not living up to your potential. and that is what it seems like J. Alfred Prufrock is describing in this poem. In the end, though, Prufrock finally seems to be accept the fact that he is running out of time by saying, "I grow old... I grow old..."(120). Time seems to be the wall that ultimately confined him, whether it was because he thought he had plenty of it, or that he finally ran out of it.