catnip?

Lately I have been finding myself fascinated by this brief touching on the subject of "pseudo-modernism," which can be classified as one step beyond postmodernism. What intrigues me the most is how much it simply makes sense to me--this "pseudo-modernism" is, I think I could argue, present everywhere in today's society, so much so that we don't really notice it anymore, if we ever did. More than that, we're okay with it. I think I touched on this a little in my last blog on here, and this isn't really the focus of my writing this week, but I just wanted to bring that up a little bit.

It is very noticeable, the fact that we rely so much on the internet nowadays. Honestly, where would we be without Google? How convenient it can prove to be. Whenever we have the simplest question, we can just type a few key words into that nifty little search bar, and the world wide web will provide us with fifty billion different ways to explain an answer.

In some ways, I really do see this as a good thing. Information is more accessible now than it has ever been before, just waiting out there, waiting for someone to reach out to it and grasp with all their might.

However, the problem that I'm seeing is that we too often are lacking in this might. We can't always reach out, with purpose, and grab exactly what we need--or if we can, we can't use it for much anyways. Sure, we've got all this useless knowledge now, floating around in our brains, bouncing off walls, getting lodged in the folds of our cerebral cortex... But do we use it?

I don't know about these claims that humans only use 10% of their brains, but I do know for positive there is a lot of what we would call "knowledge" that sits in there, molding away, stored away one day never to be used again. Why is this? As I said, knowledge is plentiful, just asking us to snap it up. So we do. And we'll hold onto it for awhile, and never look at it again. Mostly because we just don't care.

All this random information just encourages us to skim about, shuffle through the piles and piles of things, read a few words here and there, perform a surface-level analysis or sorts and take a surface-level meaning out of it all. With so much around us, our eyes roll around in their sockets, our brains are overwhelmed, our synapses try to fire too quickly. We don't retain any of it, if we even pay attention that long: it's like going to an art museum, to use a crude sort of analogy. You stare at one painting for a few seconds--take a brief moment to wonder what it means--decide it's not worth your time--move on to the next one, only to repeat the process over and over again.

Short attention spans!!! It all comes down to short attention spans. Short attention spans bred from the quick-paced nature of today's culture--all of that "pseudo-modernism," as I already hinted. I'm not sure if anyone else will remember this--but two years ago, in Honors English 10, Ms. Bennett told us that the average teenager's attention span was 12 minutes long. About how long is this, in perhaps more relateable terms? Approximately the amount of time we watch a television show until the first commercial break.

We don't really notice this kind of thing, do we? But once we do, it starts to become a little disturbing. We start to wonder, what will happen to humanity if consciousness, as we know it, as our ancestors have known it for centuries and centuries, is ultimately shrinking?

I'd like to take a moment to add to this discussion a pondering of the structure of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle; I just finished the novel this morning and found it... intriguing, to say the least.

One of the first things I noticed when I first started reading was the unusual structure. When we read a novel in an English class, the first thing we expect tends to be archaic language, extended syntax--long, long, interminable chapters (these criteria call to mind works like The Scarlet Letter and Sense and Sensibility, and any of my fellow classmates over the past few years will admit that these bring back scary, scary memories...). This book is just about the opposite of all that.

So I'm beginning to wonder, did Vonnegut foresee the shrinking of human consciousness, as I put it? Did he expect an audience with an incredibly short attention span, who couldn't focus on a single scene for more than three to four pages? I think this might be one of the main themes of the novel as a whole. It moves at a fast pace--similar to today's society, the way we know it--quick, jagged in some places. It flits from scene to scene, time frame to time frame. It can be confusing.

But we can keep up. Maybe that's the point that I am trying to make. He wrote it for us, he expected us.

And if this is the kind of book that attracts us, with its short chapters and quick-pace--completely favorable to our facilitated ADD. We don't have to think so hard. It moves quickly. Chapters don't go on for an eternity. It's "just catnip to the kids" (Vonnegut 95).

on cookies, music, and...

This week's prompt is quite wide, so I've decided to narrow it down and focus my pondering on one aspect of it. Whether this shall be detrimental or not to the flow or depth of my pondering... we shall see. Because it doesn't exist yet. ...But it's in the process!

I was fascinated by the little bit of Alan Kirby's article that we read aloud in class the other day, because, though my brain wasn't completely wrapping around it at first, one little tidbit really sharpened my focus: "Here, the typical emotional state, radically superseding the hyper-consciousness of irony, is the trance – the state of being swallowed up by your activity. In place of the neurosis of modernism and the narcissism of postmodernism, pseudo-modernism takes the world away, by creating a new weightless nowhere of silent autism."

This shocked me. All at once it made perfect sense, though I'd never thought of it that way before--today is all about complete and total immersion. Maybe it was something in the back of my mind, somewhere, but I'd never thought of it as a bad thing. In fact, even now I'm not totally sure it is all bad.

I think my best way to present this is with a few real-world examples. Not just real, but... well, real, as in, right off of me. Example one: anyone who knows me [semi-well] knows of my recent obsession (is obsession the right word? I haven't figured that out yet...) with baking. Things lately are stressful. The process of baking cookies makes the world disappear for about half an hour, and all I can think about is cookies, cookies, love, cookie dough, and more cookies. As Kirby states, it "takes the world away."

Example two, and I think this is one we can all identify with (since I'm such a weirdo with the cookies): sometimes I flick on my iPod, shuffle to the perfect song, and imagine that nothing exists but the music. It's not difficult, if you don't have too much on your mind--all original thought sort of melts away, replaced by lyrics, melody, harmony, bass lines, the sound of the singer's voice. For approximately three minutes and thirty seconds, that's all that exists.

There are a billion other things we do, every day, in an attempt to exclude ourselves from the world--we don't always know it, but we do. I feel like this should be a scary thing.... But maybe it's not... Maybe it is....

So let me have a minute to try to reason it out a little bit... Maybe the bad part of it is that we feel like there's stuff out there we want to hide away from--we want the world to go away for awhile. So what's out there? Hatred, ignorance, death, despair, misunderstanding... And that's nothing we can fix, easily, quickly--that's stuff that's going to be there for the rest of our lives, somewhere, in some form, always audible, always painful.

Plus, we're really relying on that, aren't we? All the painful stuff--we can just ignore it, if we can fully immerse ourselves in something else, forget that the world around us exists. It's more than a defense mechanism, it's just what we do. What we've come to live. Just like I said--I didn't see anything wrong with it, at first. I'm still thinking it's kind of okay. It's just the way we've moved as a society. Then, of course, that brings up all the questions about how we are moving as a society: Are we progressing? Is this progress a good thing? What do we get once we've reached the tippy-top of that progress? Where will we be then? Can you progress past the tippy-top of progress??

Ahhh, good old postmodernism. Ask a simple question, and all you get for an answer are more questions.

Cat's Cradle So Far...

I'd like to open up by declaring that I really am enjoying this novel so far. I haven't gotten that far in yet... And I know there are some people who have some serious objections to whatever happens later in the book... So I'm looking forward to getting to that. Vonnegut's style is different than anything I've ever read before.

I like it.

So one thing that really jumped out at me as I was reading was Newt Hoenikker's off-hand comment at the beginning fo chapter six: "Aren't the gorges beautiful? This year, two girls jumped into one holding hands. They didn't get into the sorority they wanted. They wanted Tri-Delt" (pg 13). Then he goes on to continue his story--reminiscent of his father, I think, saying whatever may come to mind and then moving onto the next interesting thing...

I find this novel, so far, to be very postmodern in its outright discussion of lies. To me, a lot of postmodernism is sort of delving into the depths of subjects people don't really like thinking about--stuff they're uncomfortable with. And Vonnegut pointing out that religion is founded on lies definately falls into that category of discomfort. Take the first sentence in The Books of Bokonon: "All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies" (pg 5).

Even the format of the novel itself adds a little to the reader's discomfort--we open a book, and more often than not expect to see tradition, as it has been laid down for centuries by all the great authors--lengthy chapters, mostly. Something about these ultra-short chapters worries us somehow. Maybe we can't quite put our finger on it... I know I certainly can't... And, like I said, to me... that's a little bit of postmodernism.

I'm definately looking forward to reading more. Onward we plunge!!!

Ponderings and Some Brainstorming...

I stare at the book on the desk before me. "Brave New World," it declares--more like screams it up at me, really--and all I can do is stare, and stare, and softly murmur, "Hmmm..."

I feel that this blog is more of an official pondering sort of blog. Yes, sure, most of my blogs so far have been basically pondering blogs... But this time, I feel okay about it.

So I will be the first to admit that I have not quite yet finished the novel. I'm about... two-thirds? Two-thirds-ish of the way through... and enjoying it, of course. If I haven't already said this, I like Brave New World a good deal better than I liked 1984; it just makes more sense to me. Somehow it feels more realistic--somehow, the characters seem more human.

Human? Hmmm....

This brings me into my ponderings for this week. I have also been enjoying these articles from Dartmouth--especially the one on coming up with a topic. This is something I've always struggled with a little bit... But then, brainstorming is what I tend to do best. I'll try to throw out a little of that now, in hopes of alighting on a good topic for the upcoming essay. As I said, I haven't quite finished the novel, but I do have some certain questions and bits that I would say could use a good deal of pondering.......

*First of all, why, exactly, do I feel the characters are more human than those in 1984? So far it's just a vague sensation, an undeveloped idea. Something that just occurred to me. So why is that?? Is it because they surrender themselves to their senses? Is it because they (at the very least) believe that they are happy, are content?? (I know this has been a hot topic in class in the past... I would like to develop some of my own ideas on this subject, if I find the chance. Are the people of this society happy? Can you call it happy??)

*Soma??? That's the only way I can put this pondering forth right now, just as an incredulous sort of exclamation. What is with this soma? Why do the people of Brave New World take it so much? Are they hiding behind it? If so, what are they hiding from?? I can see myself writing an entire paper on this one, maybe just maybe... I could potentially stretch it out to meet my first topic... An analysis of the society's... Hmmm, of the society's what, precisely...??

Questions, questions, all I come up with are questions. I suppose this is just my way of brainstorming. Maybe later I'll read the questions and spontaneously come up with answers...!

We are also supposed to ponder what kind of outside resources we could include in the paper. I would say, obviously, that I would use George Orwell's 1984; it may just be because we read the books at the same time, but I feel that a discussion of one might just not be complete without mention of the other. They are so opposite, in some ways, and then at the same time so complementary...! (Or is it complimentary?? Oh, that I could have full control of my vocabulary at all times.......)

I think I might also like to use some sort of resource involving a biography of the Aldous Huxley (why do I always feel like I'm spelling his name wrong, whenever I write it?? There's a question I'd like to address in my essay...). The Dartmouth resource encouraged reading into a book's context, so I would like to get to know the author a little bit better.

...I doubled the minimum word count with all this pondering, so I think I'll cut it short here.

Allow me to ponder up a provisional thesis statement:

*The people of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World know only what they are bred to know; this way they cannot possibly understand any better standard, and cannot believe that they are anything but happy.

Hmmm, needs some work... "Happy" also needs an operational definition, as my AP Psychology class has taught me.... But it's a springboard! Let's go.

(Word of the week, obviously, is pondering. Incidentally, the other word is "jerk," but that didn't fit very well with the rest of my argument.)

Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

This week I am awake. This week I have more to say.

This week there is no peanut butter in sight--just a vague dancing hangover from last night, but it's manageable.

Sounds good. Let's go.

So some people wonder why cultures have myths--I wonder why not? First let's take life, simple enough as it is: the every day-type stuff, routines, general monotony. Obviously we get through it, because we're not dead yet. But what gets us through is having something to believe in. Take, for example, Christianity, probably one of the largest metanarratives of our culture. Faith in God keeps many people afloat, keeps them walking on the blah days, keeps them standing on the awful ones. And while it doesn't exactly tell of a higher power "vomiting the Moon and Stars," it can be considered a bit of a myth, can't it? For the purposes of my argument, anyway.

But that's a bit of a touchy subject, so maybe I don't want to get too far into that.

What I'm trying to say, in my incoherent-as-always sort of way, is that to know anything, you have to have been told it before. You believe what you are told, and then you work that into your life. Honestly, if one attempts to keep an open mind, it can be difficult to prove that anything we know is not all a myth. What if it is? What if everything we've ever been told is a lie? Can we really prove it all, or are we, mostly, going on faith?

Maybe myths aren't all about mystical creatures and amazing happenings that we can't fathom and need to explain away. Maybe myths are more along the lines of the ordinary, and maybe we take it for granted. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I feel like that's all I can get out today. "Maybe" must be the word of the day.

...How come I come out with all this stuff, and at the end it feels like I haven't said anything at all?? I suppose the whole point of a blog is to get down your thoughts, just into words, even if they're not coherent in the slightest. It's like one of those [crappy] first drafts. So maybe later I can use it to form something sensible. Meaningful. Until then...

I would also like to take a moment to ponder the statement that metanarratives can lead to oppression. I find this prompt interesting. Maybe (there it is again) we should decide what it is we consider "oppression" to be... Hmmm, oppression. I see... force. Being forced into things, into lines, into... stereotypes. Ah, yes, another touchy subject there--stereotypes. If an entire culture believes something fiercely enough, it must be difficult for the individual not to do so. There's that whole "mass reality" idea again. Hmm. Hmmmmm. This isn't always a good thing. The masses can't always reign supreme; individuality needs to continue to spring forth every once in awhile (okay, maybe more than every once in awhile) for society to keep functioning. Renewing itself, in a way.

So then maybe we find ourselves in a bit of a predicament... How do we fix this?

We could fill our society with these "micronarratives... a kind of storytelling that does not seek to legitimize itself through reference to a single grand narrative outside itself." Maybe these are simpler. Maybe this way, if you want to believe the myth, you can go ahead and believe the myth--but everyone else isn't necessarily going to be persecuted if they don't. Maybe. Maybe...

This pondering was not exhausted to the full extent to which it could have been exhausted.

I have yet to produce a clearly concise and insightful blog. My time will come.

Hmmmm, "Progress"...... and Peanut Butter

I'd like to open up by admitting to the fact that I've read past chapter four. I'll try to keep future spoilers out of my writing, but just in case I slip up a little bit... Well, don't hate me for it, please. I'm only human.

So now we dash into my thoughts (so far) on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Allow me to highlight one word: progress.

People say (who are these people? Nobody really knows. Just people) that we are progressing as a society. There must be evidence supporting that claim. Look at all of our technology! We can do anything we want--or at least, technological advancements have given us the confidence to think that we can. To suppose. To be so certain that we do it anyway, regardless of repercussions. Things like texting and internet sites keep us connected with everyone we know, or maybe keep us in touch with people we haven't seen in years and years and years.... And I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing.

No, in fact, I think it's a good thing. Keeping in touch is good. Confidence, also, is good. Confidence is necessary, I would argue, in keeping one's mind while worming and wriggling about the world. So, sure, progress. But I think maybe, once in awhile, we should stop ourselves for a moment and ponder this: What exactly is the quality of this progress?

Let's take a peek at the novel. Huxley's world is full of technological advancements that, during the time period in which he was writing, would have been inconceivable. The society of Brave New World has streamlined everything that there is to be streamlined, including the growth of population--all babies are born artificially. People are made into what they are to be before they are even born. They've even muscled their way past the whole barier of having one child at a time. "One egg, one embryo, one adult--normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one gres before. Progress" (pg 6).

"Progress," they say. "Progress." What kind of progress is this, though? Figuratively it might be moving the society up that climbing slope, ever reaching out for the top.

Progress. That word keeps rattling around in my head. Bouncing off of walls. Smarting when it hits a nerve. "Progress... progress... progress..." I feel I have to repeat it over and over again, because that's the only way it'll make any sense.

So maybe the only thing I can really say so far about Brave New World is that it boggles my mind. It's one of those things you have to really ponder over, and maybe I haven't gotten the chance to carry that out to its full extent.

I am fascinated, however, by how ahead of his time Huxley seems to be. He wrote this novel decades and decades ago. And the funny thing is how a lot of the technology he describes doesn't seem too far off the mark by today's standards. Artificial insemination... This soma that Huxley's society loves so much--I keep drawing lines between it and some of today's illegal drugs. Maybe the thing that strikes me the most is how the people of Brave New World are so encouraged to give in completely to their senses, pleasures, and desires.

That makes it more realistic to me than, say, 1984. In my opinion... it makes more sense to make the people surrender to pleasure, rather than to cut it out entirely.

So, yeah, I am enjoying Brave New World. ...Is there a place for me to declare that in this blog? I think there is, and it's right there. Right where I put it.

It is late. So it also must be admitted.

This blog was completely peanut butter-driven. But I'm warming up, now--I can feel it in me bones. Expect better things to come from Marin's blog... in the near future. Until then... g'night, folks. G'night.

From MY Point of View...

So as some form of opener, I'm going to warn everyone who may be reading this (even if that turns out to be no one at all)... I have no idea where this is going. Ever have an idea and decide to go with it? Follow the current? Not care where it is that you end up? Yeah, well, I've done it before, and it's worked, so that's what I'm going with tonight.

Okay. Here goes.

In class, we've been discussing that whole debate over the history books. Everyone has been putting forth some really great, intriguing ideas--because there certainly ARE lots of great, intriguing ideas that need to be gotten out there, regarding the subject. And I'm in agreement with a lot of it. I mean, trying to, practically, rewrite history? Eliminating individuals obviously important to our development as a country, just because they stood up against the law? That's all craziness to me.

Yes, I was in agreement. Yes, I found myself nodding along a heck of a lot. But after awhile, I started questioning why this kept happening: my head kept moving and my lips kept pretty much clamped tight?

It can be a disturbing sort of revelation, discovering (maybe for the first time, maybe not) that you just don't have an opinion. These are hot topics--minority rights? Come on, people all over the place are head-over-heals to get their point of views into the forefront of the debate. It just so happens to be that I don't feel very strongly, either way.

Maybe this isn't necessarily a bad thing. When you look at it--and when it comes to, for example and as I've already pointed out, stuff like rights of minorities--I'm not in much of a place to have lots of opinion. Look at it, then look at me! I'm white--that's a majority. I'm middle-class, not rich but not exactly hurting much for money, either. White middle-class woman, whose point of views stem from her education and up-bringing. In no way do I belong to any majority. I've learned United States history from, as someone brought up in my class, the White Man's point of view, and since I don't know any different this hasn't been a bother to me.

I feel like I'm going over a word count limit, but, like I implied earlier, once I get going I get going. Even if it is about how little I have to say on a subject.

I can be sympathetic, too. Yes--I do believe that minorities have a right to be recognized in our history, for their "contributions" to society (I don't think "contributions" is a word with a small connotation at all). I'm just not ready to kill people over it, like others may be. I want everyone to have their say, I want everyone to be recognized. I want it all to be right, just, but is that ever going to happen in our society? I feel like all I have left anymore are questions.

So then I--and I'm sure, I'm positive that I'm not alone here--retreat a little big. Focus on my interests. Those things that concern me, those things that are important to me, that's what I'll fight for. That's what I'll debate over. I don't like that I'm underopinionated, but that's the way it is, and I think that's where I step down and let the people who truly care take over.

Remember Julia? Orwell's Julia, Winston's Julia. She didn't care much either. "...She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life" (pg 153). How selfish it sounds, how self-involved! Maybe we all turn our noses up a little bit when we think of people like that. But I know what I am, I know what I'm not. And I'll accept myself.

Doesn't mean I'm entirely pleased with it. No, in my general opinion, the American people as a whole are sliding more into that downward trend of apathy. Yes--apathy--that's what you'd call it. There are more and more Julias as the years go by, and probably simultaneously more and more issues we should care about. Do something about.

What're we going to do? Sit at home and wait till it reaches us there, that's what.

Excuse me for being a little bitter.

You always hate most in others what you see in yourself, you get me?

So what am I asking for? Less apathy? More education in the field of... current events, maybe? Less questions? Definately less questions. Unfortunately it's not easy to find a reliable source to answer them all.

Guess that's what we have to figure out ourselves.

Thank you for reading. I hope this thoroughly confused you and left you with no sense of conclusion--now you know how I feel. Welcome to my mind.

quick post to get started

Is it alright for me to say I'm already super excited about this blog?

...'Cause I am.

....Yes!