Better Things?

“Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.” Technology no doubt brought us convenience. We get to communicate faster through telephones, emails, instant messages and even Facebook. We get to travel faster by cars, bikes, high speed rails, and airplanes. However, are we going in the direction we want? Machine guns kill people in streaks, about 300 combo made every time (skilled user that is). Nuclear bombs made mankind suffer from radioactive exposure. So does the nuclear power plants explosion in Japan. People mutate, and I strongly doubt that is where our past want our future to lie. People use to live simple. Now we need to worry all the backfiring of nature from our "progress".  Global warming, climate change, air, water, soil pollution, animal extinction.  While we enjoy the good side, we suffer from the impacts. Using technology sure takes us faster from places to places, but, is the destination the place we want? That is the question we should think about.

On Impulse...

Ok, so here at my home is blogging time. So we know that I am not the most logical person so don't take this seriously. I don’t mean to any of this blog watchers but to some particular impulsive people in the world, so don’t spend too much time on this blog (I strong doubt anyone would). The problem is, sometimes, people gets way too impulsive than they should on the web, which is fine, but, if you want to put it on the web, think again first. So it use to bite me but it doesn’t bother me anymore, the fact that internet surfers, their derogatory critiques, their personal offense, and their racist comments, and their harassing threats were thrown on the cyberspace to show how active, gain attention, bash others they are. This is seriously without fail. You will always see news of people bringing charge against another for some stuff on the internet from time to time.That’s what people do, they don’t think before they act (HA, impulse!!). Some people also don’t think before they made half the globe their enemies, which brings me to my next point. HI, on youtube, we do not criticize an entire race in a 2:52 rant. Every 10 minutes I will be, ok, maybe not 10 minutes, let’s say every half an hour, some guy in my messenger list discussed this girl that railed against asians with me about 1 and a half week ago. Somewhere on the cyberspace, a cloud of attention gathered on this girl who said “Oh! Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong! Oh!!!”. Are you freaking kidding me? Posting a rant of this sort on the web. So, been the guy who is sitting in front of the computer writing this post, I kinda just think this is an well demonstrated impulsive behavior. (5 min later), Same thing, 5 minutes later, I still think this is an impulsive behavior, no way can an elite female like her do such a thing (drunk? Maybe..) I mean, I know, the impulse thing is a great motive, it pulls people to do things, but, we have to know impulsive behaviors usually lures people to do more negative things than positive things. I have been tempted to eat food a lot before I think and get so stuffed that I could barely walk. I understand how people are usually unable to stop this kind of natural boost in motive. However, I got a bit, a bit skinnier because of suppressing this impulse of eating. So, Thanks for reading, even though its only intended for privates eye only but this blog thing just won’t do that.

Romantics vs. Realist

Romantics, are those sentimental weirdos. Realist? oh, they are just the opposite weirdos, the rational weirdos. Romantics, are lunatics, that believe in unicorns, pegasus, treasure at the end of the rainbow, rabbits(or unknown creature like wabbits in some extreme cases). Realist are those other group of people taking everything so serious. They believe in the way world works but not any real soul value. No opinion. Robots.  Lets make this easy. Romantics believe in Superman, Howard, Batman.  Realist believes in Mike McCool. Sounds fair enough? To avoid a too good depiction of the world, realist portray lower class level work, such as but not limited to selling gum at the train station. The romantics use to depict crazy war man-machine hybrids that glorifies war and massacre all enemies. However, realist, showing the real scene, let people know people are dying.

Think about...

• How and when did American writers and poets respond to the Civil War?
After realizing the cruelty and evilness of war, people created realism, which is much more real (as suggested by the name) in contrast to romanticism, which always depicts a beautiful world. They also created naturalism, explanation provided below.
 
• What are the basic characteristics of realism?
Realism is one that depicts the world. It is more optimistic than Dark Romanticism but more pessimistic than Romanticism. It shows a true course in the world, rejecting both extremes. The production of this kind tend to focus on the lower of the society level. It stresses the struggles of those people. Writers avoid elegant language but uses everyday language instead.
 
• What did the naturalist writers believe?
The Naturalists writers believe that everything is from the nature. Human behaviors tend to be inherited and all those destiny thing is pre-decided. Humans have no say over their destiny.

You've come a long way baby

In the story " A pair of silk stockings " written by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Sommers gets 15 bucks a day. She invest those money in luxuries that were never available to her, such as going to theater, getting a pair of really good socks/stockings and visiting a fancy restaurant.  Her intriguing expression and curious demeanor shows us how new those stuff were to her. She looked around a lot and try to make the most out of her trip to the theater. She was also awkwardly shy when visiting the restaurant. Mrs. Sommers at this point finally understand the luxury and freedom never was available. Unlike Mrs. Sommers, Offred is relatively unfortunate. She wasn't even allowed to get lotion. The overall idea was miserable and the fact that she is in under control is beyond what we can bear. At this point in time, women have just as much freedom (maybe much more referencing to previous posts). In my opinion, its impossible to reverse this idea back, as many men betrayed their own sex and support the feminist in their movement to get more and more rights.

A reprieve

BOREDOM, is a punishment to all mankinds. For some reason, students are subjected to these kind of punishment more. People hates been bored. It is a fact. As students, we have piles of homework yet to be done when we get back home. We have parents that keep on blabbering about our scores. There are scary teachers that keeps on torturing us in class. There are terrible instructors that make boring and soporific lectures. To get out of this endless cycle, people resort to seek pleasure of life through different means. Sometimes, reading a manga, watching a show helps a lot. Other times, people go for talking to friends. It may also be people singing along with music (creation of karoke). For me, to get rid of this burden, I just laugh through everything. It just pulls the entire crazy heavy burden off my shoulder for a while before I put it back on.

A change of heart

People in the romantic era used to believe in super romantic yet unrealistic stuff. They believe in guys going out and beat the crap out of the bad guys and save the hot chick. Basically, they believe in Superman and Batman (not Spiderman cause he sucks). As time pass by, they realize the hard truth that those guys never can exist. There is not going to be any guy as fit as Bruce Wayne, as rich as Bruce Wayne, and as lavish as Bruce Wayne (wasting loads of money of really cool gadgets). There is nobody that can fly like Superman (thats about all he can do). They realize life sucks and you die. There is no more to it. Nothing is there to be fantasize about. The real depiction of wars made everyone realize wars arent happy and victorious. People get killed. Brothers stab each other. Dads head shot sons. Sons snipe dads. The establishment of realism brings everyone back to the real world, where not everything is so well and great. In fact, its more negative than positive.

I EXIST!

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

This quote by Stephen Crane suggests how human is an insignificant existence. The very fact that one is given birth to this world doesn't change anything. Its what they do afterward that matters. Old American value were every guy has a destiny and glorious future (something like that) and it is only yet to be fulfilled. The world owes Americans loads and all Americans need to do is wait for the world to do their job. After Civil War, they realize how small human life is. It only takes one bullet (if the guy is accurate enough) to take a life. People die so easily. Never has anyone cherish life so much. In the end, they found out lives are insignificant yet precious. It is up to the person to explore and create stuff that contributes to the world, not the opposite. Stephen Crane is simply telling us stop thinking world owes us, it doesn't.

Power

So, power, as we know, is cool. Everyone wants it. Everyone loves it. Everyone desires it. But think about it, those in power, are they REALLY in power? They may have the most executive power but, do they think what they really think? Yes, they give the orders, but can they give out orders that they want? Usually, the most powerful people are the wives or seducing girls around the potentate. They majorly influence the decision of guy. They cannot order it directly but through the guy, they can achieve everything the guy has + 1 (the guy himself).  Although the order of power in Handmaid's Tale is Commander > Wives > Marthas > Handmaids, exceptions like Offred gets some sort of secretive seducing power over the Commander. Wives are the same, except in Offred's case, Handmaid > Wives > Commander. So, this also proves one point, no matter how society is structured...female has an upper hand even if they seem oppressed.

Slant Truth

Slant is just stuff that not tilted, not straight.  So, you may ask, what is slant truth? This is a very very mystifying subject of discussion. It usually takes a semester of college course to understand this but I will make it painlessly short (This is quite some serious lies ...). Slant truth is a truth that is not straight (evidently). That is, to not tell the truth directly. BEWARE, this is not lies. Its more like not telling the entire truth. Much like peeling an onion, you do it layer by layer, revealing a bit at each time. On many, I mean many many many occasions, truth are painful.  It hurts. But it is always advised to do it slowly and split up the pain. Think about jumping from Taipei 101, it hurts less if u have a slide that allow you to slide all the way down than free falling all the way down. For my sense, I agree with that slant truth idea. Slant truth is really awesome! You get to NOT lie and hide the motive. AH HA, you get to LIE but not LIE. Doesn't that sounds awesome?

Pessimism

Alright, Emily Dickinson is wierd. She holds this unreasonable sad point of view to the world. She is always toying with topics of grand sadness, death, loneliness... It is utterly irrational. Personally, I believe she has NO right, absolutely NO right to publish or share her opinion about society and all other relation crap because she is a recluse. HOW and WHY should anyone in the society admire and get educated by a recluse? WHY!!!Its not like society forced her to exile or anything, she chose to be a recluse herself (wierdo, just saying ). On a more serious note, she wrote stuff in a really emotionally distorted way, but those at basis are still what she experienced, isolation, loneliness and death (of her friends).  Comparing to the Handmaid's tale, Ms. Atwood is very imaginative (and umm...lets keep that as sexually active). Atwood is more like eager to get oppressed or something, because female are enjoying a greater advantage in modern society than males!!! I don't know and do not want to know in depth what Atwood gone through.